Crack Like Lightning
by Pixel-0
Summary: Takes place from Ben's point of view a couple months before Pollo Loco.
1. Smashed City

I sighed contently and rested my hands behind my head, savoring in the peacefulness the early evening brought. Outside my dingy hellhole of a cabin, the sun was finally dying away and letting the monsters of the night emerge. The tall buildings of a once proud metropolis were falling part, scattering the pieces of their brick bodies upon the ground. It was only a matter of time before the rest of the world would follow suit and everything would crumble into only a memory. Like I said, just a matter of time.

Inside the building I had called home for the past week, broken beer bottles and dusty spider's webs clung to the chalky cement walls. The ground was solid dirt, pressed down by years of wear and trampling. Personally, I was surprised that the great city of Chicago would hold such a building. But, then it really wasn't Chicago. It's a smashed city that's breaking apart day by day with just the nameplate of Chicago as a highway road marker. 

Lying in my hammock above the dirty ground, I let my left leg flop over the side and swing. Pretty soon my entire hammock was moving, and I was just as relaxed as could be. There was nothing to worry about anyhow, so why should I have been frantically panicking over the shit that I had avoided?

It was all Zack's fault, really it was. How he managed to find me with my pattern of city-hopping every two to three weeks is beyond me. I don't call his contact number at all, unlike the rest of his faithful little soldiers. Screw Zack, he doesn't run your life anymore, I had told myself the first time he offered me the contact number. You run your life, not some wanna-be captain.

But, nonetheless he had found me a couple days ago and ran into me on the street. I pretended to ignore him, hoping that he'd go away and leave me to my own business. I had a mission, and he wasn't part of it. Or, perhaps he would like to become part of the mission? That certainly would make it all the more interesting. 

He followed me home, and I decided not to notice. If Zack thought he was really that sly, then I figured I'd let him think that so he would leave and go rejoice in his stalking ability. Which, I need to point out, he has little, if any, stalking ability. I can't believe Lydecker picked him as CO.

I had just made myself comfortable on my hammock as I examined the new pistols that I had stolen. All were sleek, black, and loaded to kill. Nothing could stop me now. Not even Mr. High and Mighty himself.

The door to the one-room house opened and acting upon my instincts, I aimed the firearm directly at the person who dared to come inside. Two of the people who had been using the house as their drug hideout before I had came were killed by yours truly; I didn't want people snooping about where they didn't need to be. 

Zack froze in the doorway, and once that I saw it was only he, I laughed and let the gun fall back down. "And to what do I owe this pleasant surprise?" I asked him, holding out my hand in mock politeness.

He walked up to me, and because my hammock so positioned high enough, we could pretty much make direct eye contact without me having to sit up. Wearing a scuzzy brown shirt, faded blue jeans, and that ridiculous leather jacket that he thinks makes him look tough, he glared angrily at me. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Doing?" I had asked, playing innocent. "Sitting here and checking my lovely collection of firearms over like they taught us to do back there." Of course, "there" was Manticore. The place that Zack hated to be reminded about.

Furiously, he had grabbed me by my collar, pulled me out of the hammock, and threw me to the dirt with a violent thrust. I toppled to the ground, rolled, and lay, crouching as I looked up at him. "You know exactly what you're doing," he hissed.

"And I take it that I'm not following your precious wishes, _captain_," I sneered as I rose to my feet, brushing off the seat of my pants.

"What you're doing goes beyond anything that they taught us to do at Manticore."

"_This _is what they taught us to do!" I snapped as I had pointed at the ground, trying to make him understand. 

"They didn't teach us to kill people for the hell of it, Ben," he growled.

"Yeah? Well, you're just too weak."

In a flash, he had struck me so hard across the face that I saw stars as I careened towards the wall, my nose bleeding. It was possible that he had broken it, but at that moment, I hadn't cared. He then grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me up against the wall, ignoring my bloody pain. "Don't ever call me weak," he hissed in an undertone.

"Then, don't ever question what I do, Zack. You're not the CO anymore. That was many years ago."

He backed off and snorted furiously. Although he didn't want to leave me to continue my mission, he knew that there wasn't any other choice. "I'll be watching you," he warned, waving his finger like Lydecker had done when he had threatened us. "You try another stunt like that back in Miami, and you'll be sorry that you ever started."

I had laughed at his back as he left. Threats like that were a trend with Zack; he just wanted to make it look like he was in charge when he really was losing whatever control he had to being with.

I glanced outside now, realizing what time it was as I came out of my memory. You really think you can stop me, Zack? You think I'll actually listen to you? Well then, you're a little bit late because the mission is starting.


	2. Clinking Handcuffs

I swung my legs over the side of the hammock and stretched, letting my muscles become acquainted again with moving around. After all, I had been lying there for most of the day, prepping for my nightly hunt. 

Once I felt awakened enough, I jumped down and went over to the wall where I had hung my clothing. There was a thick, black jacket with a high collar, which I threw on over my own olive-green shirt, and gloves that covered most, but not all of my hands. Just the very tips of my fingers were left sticking out so that I could have better grip, of course. I then pulled on a pair of dark pants with heavily insulated legs. Finishing up, I laced my black boots tightly and double-knotted them so I could make sure that they wouldn't come undone. 

It was time.

In truth, it had been a very long period since I had killed. Since Miami, in fact, and that was over a month ago. Miami was a blast-everyone was gullible enough and most were immigrants that had come to the land looking for an opportunity to start a new life. Fine, I had told them, I can give you a new life. They agreed to serve the Blue Lady-even until death. Stupid fools. 

Now I realized how Zack had tracked me down, as I had been overly carefree in my killings; I hadn't even bothered to cover my trail half the time. Guess that's how Zack found me.

Anyhow, Miami lasted longer than intended, so I went around until I came to Chicago on a free ticket from the last guy I had murdered. And so far, Chicago was proving to be plentiful.

I picked up one of the .32 pistols, slid a new clip inside and turned the safety off. Damned safety buttons were such a pain in the ass. I wasn't even sure why the government produced them anymore; the world was falling apart as it was, so another dead person would just be another number on a piece of paper that no longer existed. 

I then picked up the large hunting knife and tested the very tip of the blade on my finger. Applying just the slightest bit of pressure, I managed to make a red line that appeared out of blank nothingless. Sucking at the wound to remove the blood, I smiled almost wickedly to myself. It was definitely sharp enough. I wouldn't dare give my soldiers a dull weapon. Therefore, the thrill of the hunt would be dead.

Finally, I grabbed the crossbow and held that in my right hand along with the two other weapons. It was a lethal stock of weapons, but I had yet to have somebody even scratch me.

Loaded down with my weaponry, I walked around to the back of the house, where my man waited, in a tiny room, for me. The dying sunlight stung his darkness-accustomed eyes, and he raised his hand to cover them. 

Then, he saw me standing there, decked out like a serial killer would be, and let his hand fall back down. He took a deep breath, raising his head higher. I smiled to myself; this one would be fun.

His name was Carlos Sandrez and spoke little English. I had stopped by the prison about a week earlier to talk specifically to him. The guards didn't hear me as I sneaked in through an airshaft and made my way down into the holding cell area where they kept their most lethal prisoners.

Carlos was there on death row for killing not only his wife and children, but his mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and several other miscellenous children. The odd children that had no relation to him were discovered-mostly in the refrigerator and in miscellaneous places around the house-having been murdered in a Jeffery Dahmer style. I'd read somewhere that two of the ten police fainted, while three more blew chunks behind the building.

He had been an elusive criminal, one that the government couldn't catch for months. When they finally had caught him, there wasn't even a trial to determine his sentence; death row was a fact. 

I had read about him in the papers around the city and purposefully visited the prison to check him out. He intrigued me. Anybody that could kill off most of their family without regrets reminded me of Manticore.

Stepping in front of his cell that night, he saw me through his almond eyes and whispered to himself, _"El diablo."_

I laughed, understanding that he thought I was the devil in my black uniform. _"No," _I whispered back, _"Es un amigo."_

He studied me for a moment, trying to understand why a man in black would be claiming to be his friend. My Spanish was broken and hesitant, but I knew enough of it to get my point across. Between his limited English and my meager Spanish, while the other prisoners slept to the music of clinking handcuffs and low grumbles, we were able to come to a deal. I'd set him free under the condition that he'd serve the Blue Lady.

_"La dama azul?" _he echoed, not understanding who the Blue Lady was.

_"Maria,"_ I replied, telling him that the Blue Lady really was Mary.

He smiled through his glittering teeth, some of which were golden due to fillings. His long black, greasy ponytail swayed as he bobbed his head. He was taller than me by at least six inches and nearly tripled my body mass. Compared to him, I was an fly at that time.

Now, as I stood outside the place he had called home for the past week and a half, I smiled to myself, remembering a rhyme that I had learned on the streets, "'Welcome to my home', said the spider to the fly…" And this time, I was that spider.


	3. Charcoal Sky

The abandoned buildings of Chicago had become my playground as the moon rose high into the charcoal sky, with clouds stretching their snake-like tongues across the world. I crouched, hunched over like a gargoyle, on top of an abandoned apartment building, waiting for Carlos to appear and rubbing my nose in self-pity. That son of bitch Zack had probably broken it; I'd be sniffing blood for a month. But, no point to worry about cosmetic features, for Zack would pay soon enough. All in good time, my pretty, all in good time.

I had sent Carlos off into the night with his weapons and a medallion of the Blue Lady. He needed her protection; he was worthy of it. 

So, somewhere, he was scampering about, waiting for me to show myself. Show. He would see, not hear me, before he died. Nobody ever heard me. I was a wolf, wearing innocent sheep's clothing as I prowled throughout the night.

That's when I saw the wavelets on Lake Michigan, near the shoreline. Normally, I wouldn't have paid much attention because, obviously, there's always some kind of movement on the water. But, these ripples weren't wind-ripples. They were human-ripples.

I jumped down from my spot, free-falling for close to a hundred feet. Zack had yelled at me before for doing such a stunt. Said I'd break my legs right in two. Kill myself if I wasn't careful. I looked at it this way: I wasn't dead yet.

Scurrying around the crumbling buildings, I waited for Carlos to try and shoot me. The top of his head barely poked through the inky water, but I could see his anxious, glittering eyes in the dark. Two stars that had fallen from the heavens-or receded back up from Hell, whichever way you preferred to look at it. 

Patiently, I waited around the backside of a building, pressing my back tightly up against the rocky side of it. My arms were stiff against my sides and fingers were splayed, not even daring to wiggle in case that would jar a rock loose and send the whole building falling. I tried to keep my breathing quiet, but it was most difficult due to my agitation. The blood pulsating through my veins created a beat that blocked out most of the other sounds. The thrill of the hunt. Victory would be mine once again.

At the time, I was too occupied with listening to my breathing and trying to keep that quiet, when Carlos approached me. He grabbed me by the throat with his bear claw of a hand and pinned me up against the wall. I froze as my feet lifted off the ground, not even bothering to gasp for the air I didn't need. Someone had actually caught me; they certainly wouldn't live to tell about it. 

_"El diablo,"_ Carlos hissed at me, his voice an ugly sneer. A golden tooth flickered in the pale moonlight. I swear, his teeth must have been as big as my eyes. The man was a monster, both literally and figuratively.

But, then again, he believed me to be the devil. And the devil makes monsters-doesn't he? So, this man, this massive creature that had a knife pressing tight against my throbbing arteries, was indeed my monster. Only I could have created such a being with this amount of hunger for both blood and power.

I sneered right back at him, despite my having to look up at him to meet eyes. "Adìos_, Carlos." _

"Como?" he asked, not understanding what I meant.

__

"Buenas noches," I whispered to him. Then, with a powerful thrust of my knee, I knocked the wind right out of his steel stomach. Carlos gasped and nearly slit my throat right then and there. I felt the knife wiggle, causing a tiny scratch to form, but not nearly enough to kill me.

Fortunately, I reached up and grabbed him by the wrists. Twisting his massive body around, I heard his wrists crack as he clawed for me. He bellowed, swinging his ape arms at me, attempting to pin me against the building. I then kicked all of his weapons away, sending them flying off into some unseen corner. Quickly, I pushed myself up against the building so that I could have some leverage and smashed his kneecap so that Carlos, the man who had killed his family, fell.

I knelt down beside the whimpering man and grasped the back of his neck. Running my fingers over the chain of the necklace, I grinned wickedly. _"Yo soy el diablo?"_ I asked Carlos, wanting to know if he thought that I was still the devil.

__

"Siempre," he replied, letting me that I would always be the devil. _"Usted es el diablo."_

I didn't let him finish his pleasant speech about me being a devil. Besides, I knew it already. Instead, I dug my fingernails into his neck so tightly that they drew blood, and I snapped his neck with one harsh crack. 

And as his head, that bowling ball of a head, landed in my lap, I smiled, knowing that his display was coming next. I stroked his dark hair in almost a lovingly manner because She would be pleased with me. 

Looking up at the sky where the moon was being covered by spider webbed clouds, I felt the hair on the back of my neck bristle, while that damned barcode burned into my flesh.

I, always, would be the devil of both this world and the next. 


	4. Weathered Rope

Usually, after my victim is dead, I'll take the body to be properly displayed. This involves picking the corpse up, slugging it over my shoulder, so that the flesh is not torn when scraping along the sidewalk, and going to work on dismembering and other finishing touches.

But, as I gazed at the body of that giant, Carlos, I was starting to think that carrying him was going to be a bigger problem than I'd thought it would be. I estimated his weight to be a rough three hundred pounds, while mine was somewhere from one hundred sixty to one hundred eighty; I wasn't sure considering the fact that the last time I weighed myself was back at Manticore, which was over eleven years ago.

I'd always been one of the smaller of the X5 males, which led to vicious teasing about being a "girly boy" when back at Manticore. I have a vague memory of when I was much younger-approximately four or five-and going outside to climb the treacherous training walls. Perhaps it was a rather immature age to start military training and discipline, but in Lydecker's eyes it was, "the sooner, the better".

We, my main squad and I, had all lined up and then, with a signal from dear old daddy 'Deck, we were off. Zack, being the asshole that he is, had to be first to prove that he was a strong enough leader to take care of all of us. Zane was next, eagerly trying to catch up with Zack as they sailed over the walls. Jack was close behind those two idiots; I'd always liked Jack a little better than the rest, and I was hoping that he'd be the one to push Zack's nose into the dirt. Unfortunately, Jack's dead, leaving behind only dimwitted X5 males. Anyhow, at that time, it was competition, fierce, nasty competition to see who could be "all that they could be". 

Tinga, Max, and Jondy were next, staying close together in their little circle of friends that they had. All three girls were far too "I'm so much better and sweeter than you" for my preference. Max was one of the worst, always whining and pleading with one of us to do something, anything, to please her. Bite me.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if she and Zack were hooked up now with a couple kids from her heat cycles; he always did have more than brother-sister emotional attachment with her, and even though he denied it-still does-the fact remains that he wants her. I'd have to ask him how she was doing the next time that he decided to stop by.

After the trio of brats, came Syl, followed closely by Brin who was determined to push the little blond out of her way so that she could lead. Brin always was a person who wouldn't take shit from anybody. I'd have to see what I could do about convincing her to join me in my mission to serve the Blue Lady-if I could find her, that is.

Eva ran from behind Brin, with Krit in tow. Krit, the arrogant jerk that always thought he was better than you for reasons that I can't explain. He's touchy and conceited with something shoved up his ass that isn't coming out anytime soon.

At the very end of our training were just two. Just Jace and I. She was weak with hollow eyes and skinny twig-like arms that looked like you could snap them just by blowing on her. Maybe that's why she never escaped from Manticore-she was afraid of the real world. But, now, she's probably a killer stronger than any of us-even Zack-could imagine. 

Anyhow, she, seeing that we were being left behind, took off running on lean little legs, nearly flying over the walls, and not wanting Lydecker to get pissed off with us.

I hesitated, watching the others running and jumping with such a grace. My cheeks may have been heavy with baby fat, but on the inside, I was still the runt. Everyone knew it, but were smart enough not to say anything. 

Finally, I headed towards one of the walls, ready to pull myself up and over it. My tiny hands couldn't even fit all of the way around the weathered rope, and I continuously fell down. But I was determined not to give up as I heard the labored breaths of Zack and Zane walking back to the building, finished with their race. They were done, and I couldn't even get a start. 

My hands were bleeding, staining my nightgown like uniform that hung sloppily on my bony shoulders. I was crying in frustration and anger because I didn't have enough damned strength to get over that wall. A burning sensation had spread throughout my body due to muscle fatigue, while my eyes stung with tears. I was screaming and yelling, using words that were half-sane and half psychotic. 

Night arrived, and I was still out there, moving sluggishly, but determined not to give up, despite the fact that I could no longer stand from pure exhaustion. The others had gone inside hours ago and were most likely in bed. Probably Zack was laughing at me through his barred window. 

"Ben."

I turned around and with my childish eyes I saw a shadow man standing before me. He was tall and massive, built stocky with silver hair. 

Unsure, I stayed where I was, but wiped the grimy tears away with bloody, dirty fists. This process, however, only got sand in my eyes, which caused more watering and sniveling. "I'm sorry, sir," I apologized to Lydecker. "I couldn't do it. I couldn't."

Then, he did something, that to this day, I am unable to explain. He grabbed me by the hand, pulled me to my feet, then lifted me up, letting my knees loop over his arms, while he hugged me tightly to his leather chest, and carried me inside the building like a true child-not a solider child.

"Ben, you're different from the rest of them, you know that-don't you?"

I didn't know that, but I nodded nonetheless, wanting nothing more than to go back to the stiff cot and sleep-even if I did have to put up with many of my annoying siblings.

"You'll go on and make something of yourself, I can guarantee it. Don't worry about how much faster Zack and the others are. They may be shot because of their own arrogance, or may destroy their owns lives because of emotional issues. You, Ben, will not."

He then, pulled me closer to him like a father would to a son and didn't let me go until we reached my bed. I instantly fell asleep, forgetting his words until now.

Carlos' body may have been as massive as a moose, but I knew that I couldn't stand back and cry like I had done so many years ago. 

So, using all of my strength, I heaved the body up onto my shoulder, groaning under the weight, grabbed his weapons, and headed off into the night.


	5. Leftover Carnage

I walked down the shore of Lake Michigan, listening to the slurping of the waves against the diamonds of sand. Although I wasn't walking in the sand, carrying Carlos along the cement walkway was hard enough. Sweat poured off my body, leaking through my hair and flattening it against my skull so that it appeared as if I wore a single helmet of hair. As I increased my grip on Carlos' corpse, blood seeped from around my cuticles, which stung briefly, but I ignored it after a moment of the irritating sensation. Pretty soon, I was unable to tell if the bodily stench in the air was from Carlos' carcass or my own human odor.

Upon arrival of my display area, I crouched down, letting the body fall off of my shoulder in a giant plop. I was tempted to rub my shoulder, easing it back to comfort, but I knew that there wasn't time for it; I had to keep moving. 

I pulled out a pair of pliers out of my back pocket and held them up to the pale moonlight to make sure they were clean enough. Then, I retrieved a small bag and went to work. 

Fastening the edges of the pliers around Carlos' first tooth-the golden one, naturally-I felt my blood rushing through my body faster and faster, until it was ready to explode. I was a good soldier; I was doing what we had been trained to do, what we were taught to do. She would be pleased with me tonight.

With the expertise of a seasoned dentist, I pulled out the teeth one by one. The first wouldn't come, so I literally had to put my knee on his chest and use his body mass to balance myself as I yanked and extracted. Slowly, resisting my efforts, the root of the tooth exploded through the raw gums of his mouth, caking my hand with pale, pinkish-gray flesh where I had torn the roof of his mouth. If Carlos had been alive, the pain would have definitely killed him by this time anyhow.

Since he was dead, there wasn't the normal full force amount of blood that usually would have accompanied such a dissection. But, tiny vessels, which still contained some of the leftover carnage, caused my fingers to be stained red and the pliers to become encrusted with Carlos' gore.

Occasionally, the pliers, becoming slippery from the blood, would scrape along his teeth, not pulling them out, which ruined the effect and created an irritating squeaking noise, similar to raking your fingernails down the chalkboard. I wanted the teeth to be as perfect as possible for Her. Even though the tooth was scratched, I managed to pull it out and add it to the collection in my bulging bag. Before doing so, I rubbed the tooth with the side of my thumb, trying to make the scratch marks fade, but to no avail, which pissed me off and caused me to nearly split his carcass right in two so that his brains would have oozed out between the sutures of his skull. Calming down, I tested the weight of the bag, surveying just how much it amounted to. He had definitely had a lot of teeth. Mine now.

After all of his teeth were removed so that his bloody toothless gums, which glittered in mortal liquid smiled back at me, I propped the body up against a building that had fallen in slightly, which gave it just enough of a tilt that I could lay the corpse down. 

I then violently twisted his left arm behind his back, pleased with hearing the cracking sound that the broken bones made. The shoulder dislocated, causing a low popping noise similar to a gun going off in the distance. With another savage yank, his wrist snapped, and I squeezed his hand so tightly that I crushed the tiny metacarpals just by grasping his hand in my own. Bet Zack couldn't do that. 

Underneath Carlos' clammy skin, I felt the bones shift and attempt to push through the skin as I gave the arm another savage twist just for good measure. Careful, Ben, careful, don't overdo it.

From my back pocket, I produced the large bounty knife that I had given Carlos. A pity. I had specifically tested just to make sure it was sharp, and he didn't even use it. Guess I had underestimated him. Yet, there would be others-there always was.

I stared at his dead body, which contained the unblinking eyes with pupils large and dark, rolled up to heaven in a last minute plea. Blood dribbled down over his starched purple lips that were swelled from being filled with plasma, and it ran through his hair from where his toothless rubber gums would be forever etched into a scream of terror. His skin had taken on an ashen shade of gray as the blood pooled at his feet from an unplaced injury that I had caused. Sections of his skin on his hairy monster arms were flayed, having been peeled away by my tedious efforts to support the meat on my shoulder. Below the skin, veins twisted and oozed like snakes from the bowels of Hell, creating a diabolical pattern visible only to those lucky enough to see the human innards. 

The barcode on the back of his neck would never be assumed to my mark passed onto him. Never. It would just be concluded to be something that he had done out of rebellion. Of course, there would those that would know. Lydecker. Zack. Anyone else from Manticore that knew me and my devious ways.

I should have just left him there, turned on my heels and disappeared into the night. But I couldn't-could I?

Animalistic hunger and fury bubbled up inside of me, rising to my throat, burning my limbs with passion and drive. This was what I was trained to do, what I was supposed to do. There was nothing wrong. Why should I sit back and be ashamed of something that was so damn right?

Then, with a harsh bellow, I launched at Carlos with the knife, sinking it deep into his chest so that a sickening squish, as if I had ground an orange under my foot, was heard. His body lurched and almost immediately, blood built around the weapon and ran down the front of his shirt. Without hesitation, I pressed my body to his, not caring about the crimson stain that connected our bodies, lapping at the liquid, like a child licking the cookie bowl. 

The blood was salty and cool, with enough texture to make one think it was merely spoiled milk. But, I knew better. This was the feeling that animals woke up with-tasting blood inside of their mouths, wanting it, needing it while they lie awake, agitated and disturbed. 

I closed my mouth around the wound I had made, suckling at the ruby liquid like a baby to a nipple. The nectar pooled inside of my cheeks, bathing my face with a murderous mark that wasn't from my embarrassment or anger. Why couldn't I make Zack understand what this felt like? The ecstasy I received from being such a killer. _Why?_ Was it because he refused to? Or was I the one who had the problems instead of Zack?

I would have stayed to continue drinking the blood that arose from Carlos' blackened heart, but in the distance, the sun was rising, and I still had sacrifices to make to Her.


	6. Royal Peacock Blue

Downtown, I was able to find a church devoted specifically to my Lady with her fiery heart. Although there were few people out at the hour that I was, the church was open. Churches were always welcoming to anyone-even for serial killers such as me. 

On the outside, the church fit right in with the squalid surroundings. The paint had been stripped, revealing cement walls covered in years of moss and mildew. Yet on the inside, it seemed to come from a different world entirely. There were two main rows of pews with adjoining side wings as well. The carpet was a royal peacock blue and golden pillars of candles wanted to reach to Heaven. In the very front of the church was the altar below an enormous crucifix of Jesus Christ, displayed at His final hour of passion. I must have been the only X5 who used the words "Jesus Christ" for something other than swearing when knee deep in shit. 

Quickly, I scanned around the candle lit church with shadows of the same spawn as I. All the pews were empty, which pleased me. My barcode was in plain view, and I didn't care at the moment though. I, unlike the remaining X5s who concealed their barcodes or burned them off, brandished mine proudly. It was a symbol of who I really was. What I really was. 

The reason, though, that I was glad to see the empty church was so that the Lady and I could be alone together. No one understood what special connection we had; they never would anyhow. Only She understood. Only I understood.

Far, in the west wing, there was a statue of Her. She stood on a pedestal, which made Her several inches taller than I was. Around Her feet were the poisonous snakes of which I was not afraid. They would never dare to harm me as Her most loyal follower. Curving around the bottom of the snakes were double rows of candles encased in majestic purple glass. 

Carefully, avoiding the kneeler in front of Her, I pulled out the bag containing Carlos' teeth. The bag, made of canvas, was now stained red with the blood that had seeped through. Gently, I laid the bag down at Her feet, then knelt on the cushions that had been prepared especially for people such as me.

I didn't say anything for a moment, but knelt, with my head buried in my clasped hands, trying to sort out the tumbled feelings running amuck in my mind. I could hear nothing else besides the pounding pulse in my ears. Blood, either mine or Carlos', was caked around my cuticles, while I could feel a dark bruise forming around my throat where he had tried to kill me. Tried. He had come to the closest to killing me that anyone ever had. A pity that he had to die so soon. I would forever lament his death as one of victory.

Finally, I spoke. My voice was raspy, and it took several times of coughing and gagging before I could speak clearly. Surprisingly, I hacked up blood, mixed with slimy phlegm, onto my coat sleeve, and I was unsure as to whose it really was.

"My Lady," I began in a perfectly annunciated voice, which echoed throughout the great building. Although, I would never whisper to Her, I assumed it best to tone down a decibel or so that others of a different immortal existence would not interfere with my talking. 

"My Lady, I come to you, again, so that you may fight the anomalies." I paused, choosing my words carefully. "Why? What do I do wrong?" I asked, almost hissing in anger as I pressed my raw teeth against my feel anguished knuckles. "I believe in you. What do I do wrong?…Protect me, and I promise to serve you with faith stronger than you have imagined." Then, with a curt Sign of the Cross that I assumed to be appropriate in a Christian church so that She would be pleased with me, I rose to my feet and hurried out of the church, leaving behind the bloody sack of teeth. Perhaps the police would find it later and attempt to use it as evidence, but, by that time, I would be gone. The police could never catch the devil in his works. The police could never catch me in my works. 

I ran out of the church, slamming the heavy door behind me so that the sound echoed throughout the entire desolate building. Dashing down the almost deserted streets, I bumped into a few people, but never bothered to apologize. Seeing their faces told me how wretched I looked; a mirror may lie to you, but the expressions on others' faces never will. My hair was matted against my head, blood smeared over my body, and eyes sunk deep into my skull.

My heavy black boots thudded against the sidewalk, while my lungs burned fiercely, causing breathing to become more and more difficult. Occasionally, I would wipe at my nose that was running as tears began to sting in my blue eyes. Choking and gasping, I managed to make it home, while the sound of my own voice seemed imprisoned in my body.

Arriving back at the place I called home, I threw myself onto the hammock, sobbing like I knew I would. God, it was torture, pure and utter torture. I knew that killing people was wrong. Constantly taking human life, why did I do it? Why?

I attempted to push myself back up so that I could quit sniveling and try to start packing, but my arms gave way, and I collapsed right back down into the hammock. Tears fell down my face, smearing the blood across my hands so that it stained my face when I tried to wipe away the tears. Pretty soon I was coughing and crying, feeling warm mucus rise in the back of my throat, while sniffing and wiping at my dribbling nose. My entire skinny body shook like it was being racked by a violent tornado, while my chest heaved, and my voice escaped from its dungeon. I let loose one monstrous bellow, clawing at my face, then inhaled deeply, trying to push it all away with what little strength I had at that moment.

In the distance of my mind, between the wailing, I could hear a storm approaching. The thunder rumbled in the distance, building density and destruction. It was so close, but remained at enough of a range that it could be ignored with ease. I propelled it away and cried until I was hollow and nauseated on the inside. My cries faded away into moans, and from there, came sleep.


	7. His Clammy Hand

I was in the middle of a fairly pleasant dream about a time during Search and Destroy, in which Max and I were head to head, both of knowing that only one could win, but neither giving up, when out of nowhere, there was a harsh blow, jolting me back to the modern world, and I tumbled out of my hammock onto the ground. My head spun for a moment, and unfortunately, the windows were smeared with night, so I couldn't see what was going on. Immediately, a dull ache spread over my brain, and I winced, angry and still hurting from my obsessive-compulsive murders.

"What the hell…?" I whispered, rubbing at my head, believing that I had fallen out of the hammock on accident, which, in truth, didn't seem all that plausible, but my sleep-deprived brain was throwing anything it had at me for the time being.

"What the hell, is right," another voice snapped. Instantly, I froze, rubbed my eyes and looked off to my left, which was by the hammock.

"How nice to see you, Zack," I smiled, struggling to rise as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. My limbs were throbbing with pain, not to mention the fact blood was coming from my nose once again. Yet, in front of him, I could show no weaknesses, because now my killings had a purpose; they were nothing to cry over anymore.

"Didn't we already talk about this?" he hissed in a dangerous tone that I should have known better than to sass back to. But, being the imp that I was, I pushed him. 

"About what?" I asked, moving slowly towards my guns. Unfortunately, Zack was not Max with her ridiculous fear of guns, yet I was better with a firearm than Zack was, and I planned to use it against him.

He was on me in a flash. I hit the ground, grunted as the wind escaped me, and the next thing I knew, his knee was digging sharply into my lower back, right above my tailbone, which ended up grinding the vertebrae together, while he forced my head into the dirt and clasped my wrists behind my back in a cruel position. I spat out sand, trying to push myself up, but he dominated me on brute strength and weight, so I waited patiently, feeling more humiliated than I ever had in an exceedingly long time. Zack had me, and we both knew it.

"About your damned killings," he hissed, tightening his hand on the back of my neck, and applying more pressure to the sole of his palm that was positioned against the base of my skull. Grainy dirt spilled into my mouth, crusting my teeth and tongue with it. I was tempted to spit it at him, but his grip on the back of my neck was far too tight. Although feeling his clammy hand there gave me the shivers, I knew he would never kill me. Guilt was something that Zack could never live with.

I muttered something into the dirt, which caused Zack to roughly grab me by the hair, snapping my neck upwards, so that it burned with abrupt muscle constriction.

"What was that?"

"I said, 'Eat shit, Zack'."

With one violent shove, he sent my face flying back into the rock-hard ground. This time, I did manage to hear the crunching sound in my nose as my head ricocheted off of the flooring. For a moment, I didn't bother to move because now the pain was angry and my innards were sad.

Zack was pacing now, frantically running his fingers through his hair. Once I managed to push myself up in a crude sitting position, I was able to see that his eyes were jumpy, electrocuted almost. All control was slipping through his fingers because one little soldier decided not to listen.

Seeing that I was still conscious, he turned to me, keeping his hands free in case he needed to smack me around some more. "I warned you, Ben," he hissed, jabbing a finger at me, "I warned you that if you ever did this again, you'd be sorry."

"What?" I asked, curling my upper lip that was coated in blood from my nose, "you want me to get down and bow down before you so I can kiss your ass? Is that what you want, Zack? Hmm? Or would you prefer some more closer prostration?"

Slowly, with a dull pain around the edges of my kneecap, I rose to my feet, refusing to look away under Zack's accusatory glare, while wiping away at my raw nose with the back of my hand. If looks could kill, I'd be nothing more than a mangled pile of meat.

"You know what, Ben?" he questioned, moving towards me. "_You_ don't understand." On the word "you", he pushed me with the heel of his hand.

"I don't understand what? What it means to be weak? You sure do-don't cha, Zack?" Then, I punched him on the shoulder. In truth, it was only a light punch, and he had already beaten up on me for the night, so now it was my turn.

Immediately, though, Zack retorted. Swinging his fist, he missed my face by less than a nanometer as I ducked out of the way. In my crouching position, I kicked out with one leg, smashing into his shin harshly.

Zack bellowed in fury, but it wasn't like I was the happiest person alive at the moment either. Keeping my fighting in check was not going to be an issue. I didn't care if he died at that time.

He then grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, attempting to hold me up. I slipped out of my sweater, bloody and torn, rolled on the floor in a tight spiral, then grabbed him by the ankles. With one savage yank, I pulled him to the ground so that he lay, gasping, for the wind had been knocked out of him. 

I was in the process of scrambling to my feet to retrieve a pistol, when he clutched my ankles with tight fists. This motion brought me to the ground and pretty soon we were tumbling across the floor, screaming words at each other that never should be repeated. Zack, fearing that I may be getting an upper edge, brought his knee up and smacked me right in the lower abdomen where it was the weakest. It was an extremely cheap move because hitting someone in the stomach like that just plain hurts, but apparently, he liked using it. Screaming furiously, I believe I bit him right in the shoulder because the next thing I knew there was blood in my mouth and a dark red stain was forming on his shirt.

Now we were like a pack of rabid dogs just going at it. We were clawing at each other, leaving long bloody strings down his face, and since I was without a shirt, my entire body was getting his wrath; biting with animalistic hunger and rage, so as to weaken the opponent; and screaming names hoping to weaken the other's resolve.

Then, Zack did something that I hadn't expected. He grabbed me right behind the ears and smashed his head into mine, sending me into blackness.


	8. Mushy Maggots and Crunchy Moths

When I awoke, the only thing I could think of was the pain. The only factor that was keeping the blood boiling in my darkened veins was the pain. I was awake and ready to kill the next living thing that appeared in my peripheral vision from the pain. Everything revolved around the pain that had leaked into my shivering body.

For a moment, I just lay there, my hand tucked underneath my chin, nose pressed half-way into the dirt, staring off into the cold darkness that enveloped the tiny house I stayed in. I feared that if I were to stand up and attempt to leave, Zack would burst through the door, ready to tear my head off of the scrawny neck it sat upon. Maybe he figured I was dead and just wanted to make sure that I really was. Probably not. That'd be asking far too much on his idiotic part.

Slowly, I rolled over onto my belly fully, and I rose to my knees in a crude push-up, groaning as the agony shot through my body. God, it was just a couple of scratches, so why did it hurt so badly? Ok, so maybe I had eaten something in the dirt that was poison and now I was going to die. Not a likely chance of that either, considering that I was immune to most biological warfare, along with other various diseases.

Finally, pushing myself up to my feet and pulling my tattered sweater on over my head that instantly warmed my prickled skin, I made a quiet promise: The next time Zack and I met up, only one of us would live. And it wouldn't be him.

Knowing that I needed to leave Chicago as soon as possible because not only had Carlos been my second killing, but the police would start looking for Carlos' murderer-and I really didn't feel like posing for the prison-house pictures-I began to get dressed for traveling. I wore my heavy serial killer clothes. This was an excellent outfit because it was bulky enough that I could safely hide the guns underneath my clothing without any suspicion from a normal passerby. 

Once equipped with four guns, two bounty knives, extra medallions of the Blue Lady, and spare clips, I headed out of the house in search of something to eat. I may have been close to immortal, but unfortunately, my stomach was still an involuntary muscle.

The wind was starting to roll off the lake, bringing with it the stench of oil and gasoline that ran together to form one massive ball of smelly shit. Someone had once said that Chicago was one of the most beautiful cities in the world-or so I had read in an out-of-date pamphlet that I found in the garbage while disposing my first victim. A funny thing to think when you're gagging on fumes and slipping on grease just by walking down a sidewalk in the early morning hours, and trying not to inhale any unsuspecting moths that gathered around the streetlights. Crunchy little buggers they were and too dry for my liking. 

Down the block, there was a tiny store with its lights already lit, despite the hour. I could make out the figures of assorted people, all of whom were stuffing their chipmunk cheeks with food. Reaching into my breast-pocket and letting my palm caress the cool metal of a gun, I pulled out the wad of bills that I had swiped off the corpses of the original owners of my house, along with the money from the immigrants in Miami. Forty bucks. That ought to be more than enough for a quick meal. 

Inside, the store was warm and odorous, smelling slightly of garlic and burned popcorn. The lights were so stark that it made the building appear yellow, and a faded clock declared the time to be four-thirty in the morning. Three people sat at separate tables, hunched over and slurping noodles with chopsticks. Disgusting. Get some manners you pig norms. I nearly lost the last meal I had eaten as an older lady removed her dentures to finish off some broth.

Sitting down at a bar that looped around the main cashier, a pretty young Oriental skittered up to me, which didn't surprise me, considering that I was in Chinatown Chicago. She smiled with her tiny lips and offered me a menu that was basically unreadable to me. This wasn't because it was in her native language; the menu was so encrusted with dirt and filth that I couldn't understand the words. Good Lord, I'd be dead before dessert just by eating this food. Yet, food was food, and I was a starving fool.

"I'll take that," I said, pointing to a picture of what appeared to be chicken with rice. Either that or it was meat with maggots. Maggots that would ooze down the back of your throat, tickling your trachea as you ground their pussy little bodies in oblivion. Yum.

The lady, girl actually, nodded curtly and hurried off to get my food. Stroking my gun in reassurance, I kept my hand rested inside of my vest for a moment in case of a drastic emergency; I couldn't be too careful in a place such as this. Yet, intuition got the best of me, and I pulled my hand out of my pocket and continued to rest it in front of me.

I had just managed to make myself comfortable in the skank environment, which consisted of ignoring not only the grimy oil that stuck to my fingers from the countertop, but the cheap plastic covering on the seats as well, when the door opened, letting in another customer. Normally, I wouldn't have paid much attention to her, but this time I did; she was nearly impossible to miss to the normal human, and with my eyesight, she was blinding for one main factor.

She had blue hair.

Not a pale, washed out blue like denim. This was a "look at me" fluorescent, burning bright blue. Her hair, dyed that fierce blue, was jagged and edgy, coming down to her jawbone in a heavy shag. She wore dark glasses despite the weak lighting, along with tight leather pants that swooped around every delectable curve of her body and an expensive leather jacket that was unbuttoned just enough to show that she wasn't wearing a whole helluva lot underneath. She was slightly shorter than I was with pouty lips and harsh nails. This girl sauntered into the restaurant like she owned it and sat down a couple seats away from me. Immediately, the Oriental lady came back with my food and began to wait on Blue Girl.

Munching on the rice, which was not mushy maggots, I eyed her carefully, feeling strangely uncomfortable in my situation, something that was unusual for me. My barcode was unable to be seen and not a single gun protruded from my thick vest. Maybe it was because I couldn't see her eyes, so, knowing that she could be watching me, and I wouldn't know it, made me all the more nervous.

Between anxiety and pain, I could no longer eat the food in front of me. Pushing it away, I didn't even bother to pay because the food had basically sucked anyhow, and scurried away. I noticed how quickly Blue Girl's head snapped up as she watched me leave. Fortunately, she didn't follow me out into the whipping wind. I might have had to kill her then-literally.

Once outside, I sorted through the other miscellaneous items I had collected from my victims since Miami. Spare money, keys, tickets…wait…tickets. I snatched the peeling ticket and held it out in the streetlight so that my shadow didn't obscure my reading. On the back, a flowery hand signature smiled up at me, stating, _"Ryan, darling, here are the tickets for your return back home. I hope you come home safely. Don't reimburse me for any costs. Love forever, Cynthia."_

Ryan, huh? I could be a Ryan for these tickets. Flipping the bus ticket back over, I frowned in confusion. The place was out of my way, but I really didn't have enough money to go anywhere else. Well then, it was onto and up to Michigan.


	9. Popular Sports

The old man in the seat next to me on the bus typed on a laptop. At first I was able to ignore the clickety-click of the keys. Having been on the road for about a half an hour, yet listening to him slamming his fingers against the plastic for fifteen minutes, I was a little bit more than pissed.

So, I slapped him harshly on the shoulder, and I told him to shut up. 

The man stiffened, then slowly turned to look at me with angry bloodshot eyes. "What the hell was that for?" he asked, spewing rank morning breath onto me.

"For not shutting up on this goddamn trip," I snapped, trying to keep my anger in check and not impel a bullet through his chest. All it would take would be one quick motion. Reach inside my vest, out comes the gun, flip the safety off, bang, bang, and he's a dead man. Nothing more than that. I could've taken out the entire bus in one stroke had I given it enough thought.

"Learn to live with it, pretty boy," he growled, turning back to his work.

I nearly killed him right then and there. Yet, controlling my temper, I narrowed my eyes to a feral gaze and shot back, "Well, at least, I'm not a wrinkled, uptight ass like someone else."

"You seem pretty uppity to me."

"Did I ask you?" I hissed.

Shutting the top of his laptop, the man turned to look at me. "No, but I'm going to give you my answer anyway." Our eyes met, and I felt something pass between us. He reminded me briefly of the valor that my victims had displayed at their final moments. This man was a greedy, power-sucking bastard just like they had been, and I liked that about him; I'd have to force myself to be nicer so that he would work with me.

I shook my head, dismissing his impertinent answer. "Whatever."

The man laughed in blank amusement, focusing his attention on the window outside. The world spun, flashing by in streaks of early autumn colors. Leaves, wet with rain, slapped against the glass before moving onward to be crushed under the wheels of cars. The sky was still dusty with night, and all I really wanted to do was go back to my stolen home and sleep. Naturally, that was easier said than done, so I figured I would wait until my arrival in Michigan.

"You're right," he replied. "It is 'whatever'." Pausing, he hacked into a handkerchief that he pulled out of his dingy coat pocket. Finally, he cleared his throat and turned to me, "What are you going to Michigan for?"

"Family," I lied, not even bothering to blink.

"Really? Me too. My son."

"Son?" I echoed in amazement. The man seemed old enough to have grandkids, with great-grandchildren on the way.

"Yeah, playing in a football game up there," he responded, having "there" mean Michigan. "I haven't seen him since he started high school. He's a senior now, and I guess it's parents' night or something…"

"Then why are you going at all?" I asked, slightly perplexed as to why this man should even care about a person he hadn't seen in three years. I didn't give a damn about people who were my own blood that I hadn't seen in over ten years.

"Because I love him."

"Love's an illusion," I mumbled to the gun in my pocket.

"Maybe it is, but he's still my son." 

"Whatever."

"I saw him born. I'm not married to his mother anymore, yet that's another story, I guess. We were married-a long time ago-and then I got involved with my job, and I had to leave his mother and he. I've got another kid to take care of now anyhow, who hates me too."

I was about to make a smart quip about the fact that both kids despising him wasn't surprising, but I kept my mouth shut. Like I said, I figured it best to get on his good side and see what I could do about coming to a deal with the old coot.

The man turned back to the rain-covered window, resting his rugged knuckles over his chapped lips that were peeling at the inside corners of his mouth. Faded blond hair fell down over his face, while his blue irises ate away at the bloody lines that had previously invaded his eyes so that he began to look saner than when he had first starting talking to me.

"What's your name?" he asked without facing me.

For a split second, I froze because I usually only told my victims my name. Even then, I whispered my name to their cold, pulpy heart as I sipped the blood like Midas and his golden chalice. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I lied, going by a name I occasionally used, "Alec." 

Alec. Smart Alec. One of the girls I had strangled in a back alley had told me that right before she died with a wire through her neck. To make a long story short, she found out that I had killed one of her boyfriends, and knowing that dead people don't talk, I shut her up the only way I knew how to.

"Alec," he mused, then faced me and stuck out an aged hand. "Kyle."

I hesitantly shook his hand, not liking to be so close to him. I needed to get back outside where there wasn't so much constriction, where I could be free. I had lived in a cage for most of my life; it was the one thing I both despised and feared more than anything in the world. Yes, I hated cages even more than I did Zack.

"So, Alec, have you ever been to a football game? You look like you might have played some back in high school. You are out of high school-right?"

"Graduated last year," I fibbed. "I played a little bit."

"What position?"

"Linebacker." Thank God I had studied the popular sports after the escape. I realized how many of the wrestling tricks and quick football slides could be useful in the hunt once I had grown old enough to understand that I needed to make up my own training moves. Spent an entire afternoon inside a bookstore, devouring every piece of athletic information I could. Too bad Daddy never taught them to us.

Kyle frowned in confusion. "That's the same spot Jack plays."

Again, I felt my insides freeze. Jack. Perhaps it wasn't my brother from Manticore, but the coincidences were becoming terrifying. After all, Jack was the brother I had been closest to before his death. When he had left me, I had cried myself to sleep many a night after that. My other siblings had thought that I had really lost it. And I had, in truth, because I had lost one of the only people in the world that mattered to me. In a weird sort of way, I was avenging Jack's death by fighting for good, fighting for what I had believed in. He died without ever doing that.

"Your son-right?" I asked, attempting to make conversation. I hated ordinary people, might as well burn in hell for what they were worth, yet some did intrigue me enough to let them live. This Kyle seemed to be one of them. He seemed familiar to me, and I was unable to place my finger on what was puzzling me. Dismissing it, I looked across the aisle to where a woman sat, feeding her tiny cocaine child. The baby shivered and cried, refusing to feed on the shriveled nipple that was offered to it, while the mother tried to stroke its freezing skull with shaky fingers. Her eyes were sunk deep into her skull, while her skin was pulled tight around her protruding bones.

"Yeah, Jack's the only kid that I see anymore. My other son's…well…that's another story. The other kid's one apart now. That's all he'll ever be: one apart."

"Are you planning to stay in Michigan, then?" I questioned, diverting my attention away from the dying baby.

"Hell no, I'll go to Canada. That's where I was before I came to Chicago. My home, my life, everything is in Canada."

I arched an eyebrow. "Oh, really?" Canada had always been viewed as a safe haven for the escapee X5s. Zack, when he wasn't trying to kill me, would plead with me to join him in Canada where we could be safe. Perhaps dear big brother was there now.

"Canada's a great place. Only place where I can get a job and hold it down. Nothing here in this damned U.S. economy," he snorted. Pausing, he coughed for a moment. "Can I get back to work?"

"We're almost there-aren't we?"

"No."

"Oh."

"Can I start working, then?"

"Sure, get to work, Kyle."


	10. Cocaine Baby

The next two hours or so traveled more slowly than I would have preferred. Being around the company of second-rate people often annoyed me, along with enclosed areas. I had never been claustrophobic, but I hated being trapped by a bunch of perspiring, panting, putrid pigs. 

Kyle finished typing about fifteen minutes before we arrived at the docking place in Michigan. He shut his keyboard with a satisfied click and sighed to himself, examining a nail that had been torn on his right hand. "What are you doing in Michigan?" he asked, not looking at me.

"Girlfriend," I lied, no longer even bothering to hesitate; lying to him was all part of the play I acted in. "Her name's Cynthia."

He nodded slowly to himself. "You going to the football game tonight?"

"Probably not. Why should I?"

"Two rival hick teams get together. Makes the front page of every damned newspaper in the shit-hole county."

"So, this is where you lived before you left your wife and…Jack?"

"Yeah. Pathetic-isn't it?" he grinned wryly with a psychotic gleam in his eyes.

"Suppose so," I muttered. I was getting nowhere fast. I had to keep asking him more questions. I had to get him to work with me more. I had to own him. "And you went to work where after that?"

"Genetics facility in Wyoming."

"Genetics?"

"Actually," Kyle responded, lowering his voice slightly, "it was a military facility that were creating these hyped up kids. I worked in the lab, promoting the older ones' strength."

"Really."

"Of course. But it's not like anybody could even say anything. Directors would have their heads sliced for even mentioning the name of the place-which, since I do value my top, I'm not going to say anything either-because the media would have a field day with it. Think about it: Secret government building tucked away in the forests of Wyoming with bases around the country, creating powerful little monsters. Not exactly something everybody would want to see on the front page of their morning newspaper."

I paused, glancing away from him. No matter how desperately I wanted to ask him about joining me on my quest for the Blue Lady, I couldn't. He was old and frail, despite his mental strength. No, I urged myself, you need to get more on his good side that's all; he'll still be strong in the hunt. Ask him about his kids. Every parent likes talking about their kids. Daddy 'Deck sure did.

"What's your son's name?" I asked blandly, hoping he would get the point I was just making small talk because, otherwise, he would start asking too many questions that I wouldn't answer. 

"I told you that already: Jack."

"The other one."

"The one that is alone now?"

"That'd be the one." Geez, how stupid was he? He must have assumed that I had forgotten the conversation we had already shared. Like I could forget anything that was fed into my devilish brain.

Kyle cleared his throat, pausing purposefully. He glanced out the window, watching the rusting cars roll by us. For a moment, I didn't think he would answer, but finally, he said, almost in a whisper, "It's Zack."

I froze, praying he hadn't seen my finger dance over the trigger of one of the semi-automatics as the pieces fell into place with a frightening speed, causing my mind to buzz with excitement to due to the fact that I had figured everything out so rapidly. 

Kyle had worked at Manticore. 

Kyle looked extremely similar to Zack. 

Kyle was Zack's dad. 

God, I was good.

I'd considered telling Kyle that I knew his son, thinking about how bizarre that conversation would make out to be. Still, Zack would probably kill the son of a bitch and that would be that. And, as Kyle had clearly pointed out earlier in the trip, Zack's story was not mine, for Zack would be kept separate from me, keeping Kyle's certain death far away from my own blood.

"Oh really," I mused, thanking the Blue Lady that, as a child, I hadn't been permitted to work with Kyle in the lab for torture resistant techniques. The older X5 males had-Zack, Zane, and Jack-but at that time they were known only by their barcodes. I had already pieced together the memories of Kyle coming down the hallway while my unit had marched like a bunch of proud buffoons past him. Then again, some of my unit still were a bunch of buffoons. 

"How old is Zack?" I finally asked, playing a stupid-but sinless-idiot.

"Twenty-one, twenty-three," Kyle shrugged. "I don't know. It's not like a send a birthday present to the ungrateful jerk." Ungrateful jerk, I smiled to myself. Kyle, old boy, you've hit it right on the head. While dear old Zacky would never know what would happen to him until it was too late.

Slowly, the bus crept into a dying parking lot where weeds grew high and buildings fell into puddles of bricks and dust. I spotted a couple humans meandering about, but not too many. A desolate railroad track, choked with dried and tangled plants, was the only way out of the city. Obviously, many years ago, this place had been rich and prosperous with the main train station coming in and out of town. Then again, many years ago, the entire United States was equally rich and prosperous.

The people on the bus, seeing that we had arrived at our destination, rose slowly to their feet, stretching and grumbling, not at all anxious to start another wretched day. Kyle, though, made no move to get off the vehicle, knowing that it wasn't going to do any good to push and shove his way through. So, I sat with him, trying to force myself into asking him to join me. Despite the fact, he was a mere mortal weakling, I was beginning to like him, which worried me; I shouldn't have liked anybody.

"So," I began, clearing my throat as the people trudged by in aisle, "where exactly is this football game at?"

"King Street." He rose his arm and pointed off to my right. "About eight to ten miles that way. You won't miss it. Every person in the county will be there. Game starts at seven thirty tonight. You comin'?"

"I'm thinking about it." 

Kyle nodded, as if that was the answer he had been expecting. "I'll look for you then."

"What's Jack's jersey number?" I asked.

"Seventeen. I read it in the paper since he won't tell me himself."

Finally, the remainder of the people had cleared out, leaving the bus alone to just Kyle and myself. Rising to my feet as Kyle did the same, he offered me his hand. Cautiously, I accepted the clammy flesh and shook it, pretending to a true gentleman.

"It was good talking to you, Alec. I'll see you at the game?"

I nodded, letting Kyle exit the bus before me because something had caught my eye. "Yup," I grunted.

He didn't respond, but I wasn't offended in the least. It wasn't like I wanted to carry on a lifelong conversation with him. Besides, looking at him would only make me feel guilty that I hadn't asked him to join the Blue Lady and me. Still, I pushed those thoughts away and made my way over to a seat where I had noticed the bundle lying on the cracked vinyl seats.

Crouching down, I saw that, in the seat, there laid a blanket, thin and wispy, wrapped haphazardly around something as if the person had been in a hurry to dispose of the object. Yet, when I picked the pile up, there was a definite weight inside that didn't come from the flannel sheet alone. So, with a curious mind, I peeled back the layers until my fingers touched cold flesh, and I recoiled in horror, nearly dropping the mass.

The cocaine baby.

It was dead at that point, abandoned by its own mother to try to find its way to a child's heaven. The skin was tinged blue while its little body felt strangely like rubber. Gently, I picked up the baby and stared at it, perplexed and confused then, for my instinct to run away in abhorrence had left me with just questions. 

I had never held such a being as this. Never felt so warm and cold inside all at once. Something inside of me, a prenatal instinct, however, told me to take the child before hungry predators-both people and animals-destroyed it. Wrapping the cheap blanket tighter around the little frame, I exited the bus, cradling the child in one powerful arm. 

I wasn't a big promoter on giving my love away. For starters, I didn't believe that love existed-except in the delusional minds of people that had nothing else to grasp to. Yet, carrying that dead baby, I think I came as close as I ever had to feeling love. Ironically, affection for something that was so like me with similar cold heart, but so different because it had gone to Heaven, while I only had the Blue Lady to beg to save me from the pits of Hell.


	11. Cliched Community

After meandering around the city and dropping the baby off at an unnamed cemetery-where I found myself choking up with wretched emotions-, I realized that it was getting late and my presence at a certain football game was requested. 

At a local gas station not far from the graves, I managed to steal a map of the area and find King Street, where Kyle had said the game would take place. From my current location, it was at least ten miles, but that was as the crow flew, so it was more like fifteen, by the time I followed the roads. After all, I certainly wasn't planning on walking that entire distance. Wearing myself out for an asinine football game was pushing it-especially when I had just hunted recently and was already prepared to die from exhaustion. So, being a well-trained Manticore thief, I found a car.

All right, technically I stole the car. 

A pair of young teenagers-boyfriend/girlfriend, most likely-had gotten out of his black Chevy truck to go into some kind of restaurant. Silly boy had left the doors unlocked, figuring that no one in such a small town would dare to steal _his_ truck. Well, I wasn't no one; I was a someone. 

Needless to say, I took his truck.

Ten minutes later, after some simple hotwiring that a human monkey could have completed, I was cruising down the road, window open, so that the air could flow over me and relieve some of claustrophobia. At first, I had considered removing the weapons from under my jacket because they were starting to become irritating, as they prodded my already sore body. Then, I figured that if a cop got on my tail and decided to send me speeding down the road, I didn't want to have to pause when I fled the vehicle to grab my stash of armory. 

The truck was a rather sleek vehicle, and one that I would've considered keeping, but it had its own trails to cover-such as insurance papers and license plates-and I didn't want to have to get rid of both my tracks and the truck's. Yet, as if desiring to spend as much time with the truck as I could, I aimlessly drove around, mostly just scoping out to the area to find a place to rest after the game, and I began to lament ever leaving Chicago.

People in this cliched community still existed in their deformed happy bubbles. Bubbles, meaning that they still contained the stupidity that life was going to be just grand for as long as they lived, for they were going to marry their high school sweetheart, and have lots of kids, and be rich and cozy in their lovely ranch houses. The outside world had only barely touched their minds, letting in just the squeaking of media influence and the horrors that truly thrived. I saw many of these people walking their dogs down the perfectly safe streets or tending their flower gardens as their yard-long rear pointed up in the air.

I hated them. 

I loathed the imbecility in which they lived their droning lives.

I wanted to pull the truck over to the perfect curb and scream at them, throttling them back to the reality in which I had lived all of my life. How could they be so blind? _How?_ These people acted as if life really was about _happiness_ and puppy dog _love_. Life wasn't about happiness, and if it was, then I certainly had been passed on by. And, I definitely had killed enough dogs in my life-some for food, some for fun-to destroy any and all puppy dog love.

Somehow, during my mental fuming, the truck had slowed down to a creeping pace as I traveled through a small, innocent suburb. Tiny children ran across the cracked sidewalks, despite the dusky hour. In the many numerous cities I had visited, I had never seen anyone so trusting and so utterly blind. The only reason I walked down the streets of the cities at night was because I was…me, to be perfectly honest. Only a fool would exist after the sun had gone down in the worlds I flourished in; even the local street bums had enough sense to get inside if they valued their jugular in one piece.

I knew the power I held in my grasp. I truly did know it. And I both feared and loved it. Yes, I did have to question my abilities in the sense that I didn't know just how strong I could be. Moments of doubt were not something that I enjoyed, but yet they came nonetheless. They came without warning-usually after a killing-and I would be forced to question what I was doing. Did the Blue Lady really trust me? Did She really protect me? Or was I just some blind and stupid fool wandering around with the hope of one day avenging the death of Jack-and my own internal self guilt and abhorrence? 

"Cinderella, dressed in yellow, went downstairs to kiss Adella…," the little girls jumping rope on the sidewalk, chanted to keep the rhythm. I stopped the truck and watched them with my arm resting on the side of the opened window, questioning, once again. They were fascinating. They were comical in their idiocy, almost. "…Made a mistake and kissed a snake, how many doctors will it take?" It was at this point that they began chanting as the third child jumped. "One! Two! Three! Four!" The skipping girl was focusing intently at her feet, lip bit, so as to not mess up. She seemed perfectly concentrated on the job at hand and was willing to do anything to avoid mistakes. Then, her eyes lifted for a brief moment and met mine. 

I had been told before that my eyes betrayed my killer instinct and were dark enough in the daytime, let alone in the evening. So, it came to me as no surprise when the girl tripped in the rope, causing her friends to whine, "You only made it up to twenty!" She, though, did not hear the pleas of her fellow jumpers and watched me. Slowly, she came closer to the truck, wanting to know who and what I really was. Then, just before she came to the curb, I gunned the engine and sped away, my heart racing as I swallowed the acid that rose in the back of my throat.

Despite the fact I could grin and smile at a serial killer in my lap, I couldn't handle the innocence of a child.


	12. High School World

I had been in the real world long enough to know how act like a typical high school male. So, after jumping over a barbed wire fence because I refused to pay the five-dollar admission fee into the football game, I let my acting skills go to work. And, damn, I was seeing an Oscar in the future. Then again, portraying a young adult male wasn't that hard. I would flaunt my deformed English, while spicing it up with some invented curse words that were all around not understandable; turn my head to the side, spit out something that should've been digested three months ago, while being proud of the meager distance I could make the large globule fly. But, most importantly, the key to being a true high school male was to walk with my cock leading the way.  
  
On the other hand, females weren't much better than the asinine guys; the only thing I found an ordinary female good for was an occasional fuck or two. Even then, I'd tire as they would drone on about how utterly beautiful I was, and then wanted to talk all sentimental about "our love-making". It was a clean cut fuck. Nothing more.  
God, I hated ordinary people.   
  
Thank the Blue Lady I never was one.   
  
The high school stadium, was, as Kyle had predicted, packed with every hick in a twenty-mile radius. On one side, the home team-a flurry of black and gold-swarmed into their massive silver stadium, screaming their hearts out while a bunch of insolent bandzies paraded stupidly on the field, killing time until the football team burst onto the scene. Anorexic cheerleaders squeaked out pathetic pep cheers that the caffeinated crowd ignored anyhow.  
  
Across the large green football field, a smaller, more dilapidated bleacher packed with the rival team of blue and gold screamed out angry cat calls, impatient with the wait it took for the jocks to come stampeding onto the field. Finally, the band people marched down the field into two rows and stood at attention, letting their instruments glisten under the gigantic lights.   
  
I leaned onto the fence that separated the stands on the home side from the field. Technically, an entire track for running wound itself around the field before fences made barriers, but nonetheless, I was apart from the main attraction. Resting my elbows on the fence, I bent over so that my ass stuck out to be admired by all. Anyone dared to slap it, though, they were going to be eating out of theirs.  
  
Suddenly, the high school world exploded as the dinosaurs in football helmets rushed out onto the scenes grunting their school names and bellowing to one another. I smiled cynically to myself at their dumb wittedness, and tried to decide which one would die before the night was over. Eenie, Meenie, Minee, Mo. Catch a football jerk by his toe. If he hollers, kill him slow. Eenie, Meenie, Minee, Mo.  
  
After several minutes of watching the idiots beat each other up, I turned away from the fence and began sauntering down a strip of sidewalk that led to the bathrooms. In the character I was playing, walking wasn't merely a physical action; it was an art. The shoulders had to be slightly twisted so that the individual blades were in an opposite motion to the feet. If I was stepping with my right foot, the right shoulder needed to be leaned backwards to a slight degree. A little lazy slouch was always appropriate as well along with the downcast eyes that were still able to observe everything. I resisted the urge to grin as I thought how damn good I was.  
  
During my aimless cat-walking in which I looked for Kyle and Jack, I caught many a snippet of conversation that made me want to burst into hysteric laughs. Like I already said, ordinary people were just so damn ordinary.   
  
"…well, Shaun says that he's, like, just at his cousin's for the weekend, but I really think he's, like, with that other chick…"  
  
"…what did you get on that Geometry exam? I think I must have failed it, it was so hard!…"  
  
"…and I go by the screen-name of Pixel and write all these stories on the Internet for this TV show…"  
  
"…me and Cassie? Yeah, I told her we 'were just going out as friends', but after tonight? Oh man…"  
  
"…have you seen Jack? I think he must have, like, twisted his ankle or something 'cause I saw him limping or something towards the bathhouse…"  
  
Instantly, I stopped in my tracks, whipping around to watch the two cheerleaders as they sashayed by me. Jack? Kyle's Jack? Quickly, I glanced around, searching for the bathrooms, and found them to be up the tiny hill that was around the back of the football field. Hurriedly, without trying to be too noticeable, I trotted towards them.  
  
Inside the ill lit bathroom, I found a typical set up of cracked urinals, a few individual stalls that offered little, if any, privacy, and a row of dirty sinks. I glanced around the room, listening for any suspicious noise, and when I had found none, I went over to one of the urinals, and unzipped my pants. Just as I was ready to take a piss, I heard a low sniffing sound coming from the closed door of the stalls. Keeping one hand below my belt so that I could finish my business, I leaned backward slightly, trying to peer around the separations of the individual stations. With my precise eyesight, I caught the white cleats of a football jock huddling next to the toilet. Sighing heavily, because I was sick of having to baby-sit second-rate people, I zipped up my black pants and went over the door.  
  
I knocked three times in a quick, rapid motion before the stall opened and out sauntered a football jock, wiping at his nose, trying to hide the fact he had been crying. Yet, I wasn't an idiot-and the only other thing bloodshot eyes were caused from were drugs, so I assumed that this boy had been sniveling like a big pussyfooted baby.  
  
"It's yours if you want it," he said to me, barely making eye contact. He limped heavily over to the sink, where he clasped the white sides in tanned fists, studying himself in the mirror as I inspected him from behind.   
  
He was a little bit shorter than I was, but not by much, considering that I also was a few years older than he-and light-years ahead in finely tuned genetics. His mop of neatly buzzed hair was a pale shade between dishwater blond and all-out Californian surfer bleached blond, of which I couldn't be sure either way because of the dirt and grass smeared into it. There were matching green streaks up and down his large, muscular arms that were annunciated from his years of training for jock kingdom. The nose, upon which a thin strap of bandage rested, was highly defined and caused a dark shadow to trickle down the rest of his angular face. His face was angular, harsh and jagged, prone to looking more at ease in apprehension and turmoil than in happiness. But, in the bleak lighting, what grabbed me most of all was the number seventeen on the back of his jersey.  
  
Jack.  
  
I had found him at last.  
  
Jack glanced at me from behind and then back to the mirror, "Look, man, do you want something or not?"  
  
"You Jack?" I asked, rapidly adjusting to the modern slang of the high school world.  
  
"Yeah. What 'bout it?"  
  
"Didja know your dad's 'ere?"  
  
Jack turned around rapidly, his eyes burning with both fury and questioning. He approached me, but safely kept his distance. Like a typical sportsman god, he believed that he was invincible, and that none could stop him. I, though, was about to change all that.  
  
"Kyle's here?" he asked, his voice dropping a decibel as if he was afraid we were going to be heard.  
  
"Yeah man," I replied as I leaned against one of the shortened walls that divided the different urinal areas. "He came to see ya."  
  
"Bull-shit," Jack hissed and turned away.  
  
"You enjoyin' football?"  
  
"What? Wait, who the hell are you?"   
  
"Call me a friend, if you will."  
  
Jack snorted and rested his hands on his hips. I quickly scanned his body over and noticed the swelling ankle on his right leg. So, he wasn't quite as strong as he perceived himself to be.  
  
"Looks like you got banged up pretty bad," I continued, forcing myself not to laugh with impish delight that he was unknowingly falling right into my hands. He should have left when he had the chance. He never would now.  
  
"Not that bad," Jack countered, his dark eyebrows scrunching together on the bridge of his nose. "I'm going back in third quarter."  
  
"And if you don't?"  
  
"What do you mean, 'if I don't'?"  
  
"Exactly that. What if the coach finds somebody to replace you because you're not quite fast enough or swift enough with that bum ankle? You lose a position, you could lose some scholarships."  
  
"I doubt it…I-I'm team captain!" Jack sputtered with childish fury, crumbling before my very eyes. At first I had been slightly opposed to the idea of him joining me because of his high social status. Now, I realized he was just as manipulative as any other human that I had taken control of. Take away all his shoulder pads, cleats, jerseys, and jockstraps, and I would be left with nothing but a loner who snivels on the inside. He would be mentally-and physically-extinct by the time I was through with him. My brother's death would not be in vain. The anomalies would not eat my brother's flesh merely because a seizure cost him his life. This modern Jack would see to that.  
  
"Team captains can be replaced-can't they?" I asked, pushing him more than I probably should have. But, I knew how to play my cards well. If I pushed too much, a couple of swaggering smiles, and fake grins would do the trick.   
  
"But-I-it doesn't…what are you saying I should do?"  
  
"I can help you. I know someone who can make you stronger, make you better than what you really are," I told him, finally reverting back to my regular English instead of the horrendous slang I had recently adapted.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Call her the Blue Lady."  
  
"The Blue Lady?" Jack scoffed, obviously disbelieving. "What are you? Some voodoo pot head?" He snorted and began to walk out the door. "Whatever man."  
  
In a flash, I was standing in the doorway, blocking his exit like a dark monster, while I relished in the stunned expression that overtook his delectable face. "You were saying?" I asked, casting a fiendish grin in his direction, even though I owed my speed mainly to good genetics-something that he would not have-and the luck of the Blue Lady.  
  
He nodded blankly, swallowing his Adam's Apple, which had undoubtedly risen in the back of his throat. "I believe you."  
  
"Good," I smirked. "Be here. After the game. We start at midnight." 


	13. Late Night Dew

Of all the wonderful feelings in the world, none could probably give a person more dominating satisfaction than standing out in the middle of an empty football field, smelling the blood and flesh that has been impacted into the dirt only moments before. The stadium lights are dark, but if one knows how to tilt their head just right, they can feel that the radiation is still vibrating off of the massive lights.

The late night dew had already formed on the glistening grass, which seeped around my steel-toed boots and nibbled at the bottom of my blackened jeans, but I ignored it, concentrating on the task at hand instead. 

After so many years, Jack would be free of the anomalies, which had eaten him alive. Jack would live again. God, it nearly brought tears into my psychotic little eyes. 

Still, I flicked the cigarette ashes off to the side, letting them fall like snow down upon the wet grass. Grayish snow, though, the kind that would pollute the earth instead of nurturing it like real frozen ice. Screw the earth. People said that if you helped the earth, it would help you in return. Bull-shit. It had never helped me other than to supply a burial ground for my siblings.

Bringing the smoldering cigarette to my lips, I inhaled deeply, letting the acrid smoke warm my lungs before I expelled it out only to continue polluting the air. I slid my sleeve back, checking the time, although I mentally regulated the time better than any technical wristwatch could ever hope. Regardless of that fact, though, reviewing the hour gave me something to do, other than absorbing the almighty rays that flooded down from dead stadium lights. Fortunately, Jack still had five more minutes. If he was late, I was almost positive that the Blue Lady wouldn't appreciate that, and I would be required to show him what happened to those that were late.

So, I waited.

Finally, after ten very long minutes, Jack came hurrying across the field, puffing out hot air like I was emitting smog from my cigarette. I knew that in the obscure blackness, he could only see the golden end of my burning cigarette and perhaps some poor illumination upon my face, but that was it. Yet, he-being the smart jock that he was-stopped a couple feet away from me, panting too heavily for someone who was the varsity football's captain.

"It's midnight," he stated, resting self assured hands on his broad hips. "And I'm 'ere, now it's your move."

"Actually," I quipped as I flicked the remainder of my cigarette to the wet grass and ground it underneath my powerful heel like a bug, "it's your move, Jack."

"What?"

In a flash too rapid to follow with normal human eyes, I whipped out of my vest a sleek new pistol and tossed it to him with the mocking call of, "Catch it".

Jack, obviously having been trained in catching a dead pig's skin, scrambled to latch onto the whirling firearm and caught it, cupping it between the palms of his hands. At first, he apparently didn't realize what he was holding onto, but as he brought the weapon closer to his face, he gasped aloud in shock, betraying true human weakness: the fear of violence.

"This is a gun," he stated stupidly.

"Yeah," I replied with my usual bland "I don't care" attitude. "Haven't you ever seen one before?"

"Of course I 'ave," he snapped back with fire in his eyes. "It's just that…I…"

"You what?"

Jack looked up from the weapon and peered into the night, attempting to grab hold of my eyes. "Who the hell are you? What do you want from me? I want ans'rs or else I'm not working with you and your sick little mind game-aiight?"

I laughed in the back of my throat, wishing I hadn't discarded that cigarette quite so early in our conversation. "You may call me whatever you want. I have been labeled as the devil, fiend, bastard…and names that don't matter anymore." I shrugged aimlessly, balancing on the balls of my heels, while I crossed my arms loosely about my chest. "Call me what you please…it doesn't particularly matter. And from you, Jack, son of Kyle? I want your faith," I sneered in vicious whisper, "I want your blood smeared on this field tonight, to save my brother who died. I want you to feel the pain of losing someone that you love. I want you to be told that what you are doing is wrong, and you're wrong for doing so." Chuckling hoarsely to myself, I turned away so that he couldn't hear me say, "I want Jack alive."

"Look man," he was replying, but his voice was so far away and distant that I barely noticed he was even there with me, "I don't know what your prob'm is, but I can give you anythin' you want. My mom's loaded. Tons of cash. Chicks to screw, beer to drink, comp'nies to control…I can get you pretty much anythin', but I don't want to be dragged into whatev'r you 'ave planned. I'm the wrong guy, ya see? I don't know anything about your brother. I don't even know who you are. Just, please, man, you 'ave to listen to me," he babbled.

Whipping around so sharply that, in one frozen instant, my face was plastered into a cynical smile, I hissed, "And why would I want to do that?"

Without hesitation, Jack dropped the gun I had given him which would have presented him with a chance to save his miserable life, and he began to run. He blasted down the deserted field, throwing up tiny beads of dew beneath his rubber heels as he sped away, screaming for help. For somebody with a bum ankle, he could move pretty damn fast. And, if he hadn't been screaming so loud, I would have let him keep on running and relished in the joy of the hunt.

But, unfortunately, he was yelling that a madman was after him and wanted to murder him, which certainly did interfere with my delicate plans, so I did the only logical thing I could do at that moment: Went after him.

My feet left the ground before the rest of my body even had time to realize that I was in motion. The muscles contracted, snapping tendons and ligaments, while my brain rapidly fired intricate messages to the remaining organs that had been left in a standstill. I was down the field just as Jack had barely left it. My lungs were burning from the extreme lack of oxygen because I hadn't even thought of breathing, while my muscles began to shake with horrid fatigue. 

Yet, I would not give up.

I propelled myself off the ground, in one massive jump so that I managed to tackle him roughly to the ground. We hit the damp terrain together, repeatedly rolling over, letting the wet dew soak through our clothing. Finally, in one furious moment, I flipped him roughly onto his back as he still continued to bellow, and I thrust my hunting knife out, positioning it ominously above his meager head. "Shut the hell up, you fool," I hissed. "Or else I'll cut your vocal box out and you'll be left with nothing but bubbling blood-got it?"

He nodded blankly.

"Good," I snapped, and in one violent motion, I slammed his dumb head back against the thickly packed ground, knocking him unconscious.

For a moment, I stayed where I was, straddling his inanimate body. In the pale lighting, which only I could catch, I could see how pure his skin was and how his teeth glittered so wonderfully between pink lips. The knife in my hand was becoming sweaty, and I clenched and unclenched my hand on the handle, wanting to rip his heart out and drink his blood. Wanting to pull his gorgeous teeth out so that the Blue Lady could rise again. Wanting to slice him apart like the men back at Manticore had done to my brother. 

I raised the blade high above his chest, burning with anticipation and fury. Kyle, you killed my brother, now it's my turn. Yet, just before, I sunk the glittering steel into Jack's chest, I dropped the knife to the ground, knowing that I couldn't kill this Jack, despite the yearning inside of me to avenge my brother's death.

Slowly, I rose to my feet, hating how horrid I felt because I had to leave the person that I desperately wanted to destroy. He didn't deserve to die, but then again, my brother didn't deserve to die either. Crumbling foolishly to the ground, I clutched my despicable face in my hands, crying, "Jack…come back…"


	14. In the Basement

"Ben, get up. It's time…"

"No," I grated into the dirt beneath me, clenching muddy fistfuls of grass between my fingers as my skin began to prickle with the autumn Michigan chill. I didn't know how long I had been lying there on the cold football field, sobbing and cursing every person that I could think of at the moment. My coat was smeared with gladiator's blood and saliva, all of which was adulterated by the menacing muck. The ground was ripped apart where I had violently hacked away at it with my knife like I had wanted to do to Jack's body. The weakness of not being able to kill a man that was supposed to avenge my brother's death had eaten away ate me until I had been reduced to a sniveling lump of tissue.

Yet, the voice sliced though the darkness again, this time more demanding, "_Ben. Get up_."

Slowly, I lifted my head to face the person who was ordering me so, and everything instantly vanished as if by some spiteful fiend of the mind. The football field was wiped away, Jack's unconscious body disappeared, and my mature flesh was stripped from me. My world blurred into one garbled mess, and without warning, I was back inside my Manticore past, lying on the glistening tiled floor of our dormitory with blood dribbling out of my young nose. It seemed as though my present emotional pain augmented my past physical pain-neither of which I could readily escape.

Crouched beside me, Jack emerged into my peripheral vision, rubbing my shoulder and whispering, "Ben, get up. It's time…Get up, Ben, get up." His voice, despite the premature age at which it was presented, conveyed an utmost sense of authority and affection; he should have been CO-not Zack.

I couldn't move, at first. Everything in my entire body wailed with burning pain that sent jarred contractions through me. When I did try to rise, my vision obfuscated from the agony-and the blow I had been given-and I would be sent sprawling awkwardly back to the floor like a toddler who has not yet learned to walk. 

Off in the far corner, Zack dully stood, looking out the window with glassy eyes as he rubbed his split knuckles. During my struggled to stand, he would occasionally glance over to me, as if trying to make himself believe that he was, indeed, the good little CO he would always strive to be. Nevertheless, when I lifted my swollen head to meet his eyes, he turned away, denying that he had cared-friendship was an emotion that Zack had yet to openly portray; the best anyone ever got was a dismayed grunt.

"Ben." This time it was Eva's voice, painfully feminine and dangerously robotic. "They could be coming soon…and if they see you like this…"

"I-it," I stammered, wiping clumsily at my nose that was probably broken. A film of blood and clear mucus smothered the back of my hand as I did so. "It hurts," I moaned.

"Come on, all we have to do is get you to bed. That's all," Jack was urging me. "Try to get up…balance on your feet, at least."

Clutching a leg of one of the glacial beds and causing some severe pain from my bruised muscles, I managed to drag myself up to a seated position, upon which Jack and Eva immediately grabbed me by the arms and began to haul me across the floor. Max and Jondy, who were sitting cross-legged on one of the beds and playing some kind of string game with a strip of fabric from the cots, looked up as I passed.

"What's wrong with Ben?" Jondy asked, abandoning the game and hopping off the bed.

"He got in a fight," Jack explained to her as he pushed me into bed and propped my nauseated head up with flimsy pillows that even the homeless would have found unsuitable. 

Max's doe eyes widened, while she followed Jondy's path over to Jack. "With who?"

Jack was about to answer her, when Zack stepped forward out of the shadows, letting a sliver of the moonlight outside caress his harsh face before illuminating his body in its entirety. "No one, Maxie…no one."

An unspoken ripple of comprehension stirred throughout the hollow room as everyone put two and two together. After all, it didn't take a genius to realize that dear old captain had punched me cleanly in the face, then threw me to the ground in his blinding rage; a fight that they had not seen and probably never would see one like it. Yet, the fact remained that I was the one who had provoked Zack by challenging his almighty authority with belligerent words, thus, averting the sin of my pain on my head-not his.

Jack sat down on my cot by my hip and tenderly dabbed at the clotting blood around my nose with the wet end of a blanket. "You're hurt pretty badly," he told me apathetically.

I tried to laugh, but my voice came out as a gargle in the back of my throat, and I ended up coughing several times before I was able to speak. "It could be worse."

"Ben…" His voice was sympathetic and soothing, not at all like Zack's roaring bellows. Jack had never once gotten angry with me, although, on rare occasions, he would find somewhat of an irritation inside of him, but could rapidly dismiss the feeling almost as easily as it had arisen. I trusted Jack more than I trusted myself most days; on the same viewpoint, though, I also feared him to a certain extent, constantly unsure if he would snap. "Tell me what happened," Jack urged, patting me on the leg.

I sighed, leaning into the cold cotton that composed our pillows, and I found absolutely no comfort in doing so. So, I pushed myself to an erect sitting position instead, making direct eye with Zack before starting. "I was down in the basement, and…I saw them."

"Them?" Eva echoed, clambering on my bed beside Jack. 

"The 'nomlies," I responded, and I watched a swell of both confusion and fear pass through the group that was haphazardly gathering around me. At that period in our Manticore lives, we had not yet began building marches in which we would march stoically around the facility, so only a select few of us had seen the anomalies. Zack and I, specifically-the cause of our fight earlier in the evening.

"What are…'nomlies?" Max chirped in her sweet voice as she, Jondy, and Tinga made themselves comfortable on the foot-board of my bed.

I paused, wondering what to say that would terrify her so that she would forever lie awake at night, fearing for her life. I wanted her to suffer. I wanted them all to suffer because I was different and they all knew it. They laughed behind my back, whispering adulterous comments just because I was smaller…weaker…inferior. Yet, I knew at that moment, as I began my horrifying description, that there would be a day that I would stand above them all and laugh. Laugh at them. Laugh at Lydecker. Laugh at the anomalies that wanted me to join them.

"They're creatures," I whispered unintentionally as a torrent of anguish pulsed through my body, causing me to wince, although my group of listeners believed my grimace to be caused by the painful memories-not the stitch in my side. "Creatures that crawl up from the basements. Their nails scratch against the walls…" Forming my hands into monster-like claws, I hissed, "Scritch, scritch, scritch…" My audience had increased-with the exception of Zack, who stood off the side, almost disowning the rest of us. Well, he was of no importance; his ears would hear my words anyway and would hopefully scare him in some way or another. "They have their own special tunnels that they use because, even though everyone insists that they're stupid…they're not. They have their own special ways of getting to us that Lydecker doesn't know about. The 'nomlies hate him just as much as we do. Only problem is that they hate _us_ more because they were supposed to be like us, instead they're down there…in the basement, wasting away. But, when it's dark and everyone's asleep," I said under my breath, leaning forward in my bed, "you'll never know that they're there until…BAM!" Everyone jumped in surprise, and I heard someone hold a scream down. "Until they drag you away to open you up and drink your blood to try and become us."

Jondy, now quivering in fear it seemed, trembled, "And when will they come for us?"

I shrugged absentmindedly, watching Zack glare at me through the corner of my eye. "Whenever they want to."

"They could be coming _right now_?" 

"No. It's too noisy because we're still awake."

"And when we go to sleep?" Krit challenged.

"Then, they will come for us, unless someone can save us."

This troubled them, obviously, because none of them fully believed my story, yet at the same point, they weren't about to deny it in case someone _was_ dragged away in the middle of the night. Nervously, Max and Tinga exchanged worried glances, wanting to ask each other if I was lying to them or if I had discovered another horrid secret that Lydecker had kept from us. Finally, though, Brother Zack broke the silence.

"That's impossible," he snorted in his deep voice as he padded across the cool cement floor. "The 'nomlies don't want us."

"Then what _do_ they want, Zack?" Jace questioned, not wanting to provoke him, but merely wondering. 

Before he could answer, I gave a weak snort, and pressed, "Yeah, Zack, what _do _they want?"

"They want Lydecker," he responded, naturally grabbing onto the first logical answer that presented itself to him. Then again, logic was never a strong point for Zack, so I, of course, challenged him.

"Then why haven't they grabbed him yet? He's down there nearly every day, and we all know that," I commented.

Pausing as he decided whether or not to sock me again, Zack bit down on his lower jaw, causing a muscle in his ruddy cheek to start twitching warningly. "Get to bed," he at last snapped to the others, "before somebody comes in here, and we all get punished."

Without having to be asked twice, the other siblings all hurried away to cover themselves up with starched cotton sheets-with the exception of Jack who gave me a longing look, knowing that he couldn't protect me from Zack. 

Yet, before Zack retreated to his own bed, he placed his hands on my mattress and bent over me, twisting his lips back into a feral sneer. "_Don't_ you do anything to scare them, Ben," he warned. "You scare them, Ben, and we'll _never_ get out of here. You and I both know that the 'nomlies don't want us." 

"The next time one of us dies, Zack-'cause you know that it will happen eventually-watch where the men take that person. Watch, and _then _you tell me that the 'nomlies don't want us. Tell me then, Zack, and I'll stop telling the unit the truth."


	15. Bloated Blue Eyes

Needless to say, both Zack and I ate our words a few weeks later when Jack began his fatal seizures. Max, Zack, and I were all gathered around Jack's bed, watching him from above with worried faces. Trying to be so utterly stoic, I reminded Zack that if anyone saw Jack in the disturbing condition, they would feed him to the anomalies. Yet, our conversation was cut short by the interruption of a nightly janitor. Instantly, we all scrambled for our beds, watching the black man who pushed his cart down the aisles, mopping the floors with a sickening splat of his military mop. 

As he came upon the seizing Jack, he paused and crouched down beside my brother, pulling a card out of his pocket. Pressing the card into Jack's listless hand, the seizures miraculously subsided, and Jack gazed up at the man, astonished and scared. "Pray to her," the janitor said, "she'll watch over you." And as soon as he had left, we all sprang from our cold beds to see what Jack had been given from the mysterious outside world.

"What'd he give you?" I asked, leaning over Jack as I tried to contain my excitement. 

Staring in great perplexity at the card, Jack muttered, "You can see her heart."

Then Zack gave one of the most surprising comments I had ever heard from him: "She's beautiful." I would have burst out laughing and slapped the dumb fool across the head had Max's question of the lady's identity not provoked me. 

Max wanted to know who "the blue lady was". It was then that I realized what a valuable piece of information Jack had been given. Gently taking the card from his hand, I eyed it over, now knowing what I could do to my squadron of brainwashed little soldiers.

"She's watching over us," I whispered to myself, and my belief in Her began. 

None of us though, -especially myself-was prepared for the day when Jack collapsed out of line, falling into his last seizure. As the men dragged Jack away through a pair of flapping aluminum doors with his hands madly quivering, Zack shot me a cold glance as the realization suppressed itself over him that Jack would indeed be eaten by the anomalies. And, although Zack would forever deny his comprehension, he never again accused me of fabricating when it came to the monsters that clawed the basement walls.

Slowly, the gray hallways of Manticore dissolved away to leave me sprawled on the wet grass of the football field, where I knelt, hunched over and clasping my pounding head in my hands. Tiny hisses of steam trickled out of my panting body as I desperately tried to block the plaguing memories and ignore the pain Manticore had given me so long ago. After several minutes of the stillness during which I fought back tears and psychotic screams, a voice sliced crisply through the night. 

"Ben, what are you doing now?"

Staring upward, I found myself gazing at a young boy who could only be, of course, Jack. There were scars across the top of his flayed skull, where they had obviously dissected him to learn more about our fatal seizures, yet other than the wounds, now brown with dried blood, he appeared to be the same brother that I deserted over ten years ago. Dressed in his standard Manticore hospital gown apparatus, he slowly walked toward me on bare feet and stretched his hand out to me, oblivious of the cold.

"Get up Ben, get up."

I blinked, not believing what I was seeing, and I shook my head, vainly trying to clear it of the mental fog that had suffocated my mind. "Jack?" I whispered incredulously.

He smiled, sadly almost, and nodded. "Yes."

"But…you're dead."

"Yes."

"Then, what are you doing _here_?"

"I came to talk to you."

"A little bit late," I snapped angrily, turning away from him. He had left me alone, and _now_ he wanted to talk?

"We need to talk," he paused, studying me as I pouted on the ground. "Take my hand, Ben, the dead don't bite…you should know that by now."

I looked up at him, my eyes narrowed and yet gaping. Finally, with great hesitation, I reached up and clasped his hand in mine. He was internally cold and the skin was clammy, which reminded me of how Carlos' flesh felt before I had chopped it open.

With more strength than a boy ghost should have had, Jack helped me to my feet and led me over to the bleachers, where we sat down, side by side, and stared out over the football field. The moon had risen high in the sky, and faint wisps of sunlight were crawling across the top of the buildings, but the majority of the world was dark and silent. One of the guns was prodding me uncomfortably in the side, and my nose had somehow started bleeding in the time since I had undergone the flashback, but Jack-Kyle's son-still lay unconscious underneath the goal post with his heart openly exposed. I should have killed him when I had the chance.

It was a creepy sensation being seated next to Jack because every logical part of my brain insisted that he was dead. I had seen him dragged away into the world of the immortals. I had seen his hands violently quivering with frightful spasms. I had seen how his eyes were rolled back into his sockets, blind to the sobbing of his siblings. Nevertheless, he was beside me, dangling his puny little legs over the seat of the bleachers, while I rested my elbows on my knees, convincing myself that I couldn't have been trapped in some kind of transgenic purgatory.

"What are you doing, Ben?" His voice, hollow and devoid of any human life, erupted through the quietness, echoing around my eardrums. 

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"The denial. The hatred. The killings."

"You know why."

"The Blue Lady?" Jack questioned, turning to face me with bloated blue eyes that were grotesquely pale in the moonlight that fell down from above.

I didn't answer him, and merely let a hiss of steam out between my lips in reply.

"I figured so," he sighed.

"And what? You want to slap my hands like I'm doing something wrong? You want to grind my face into the dirt like Zack has been doing for…_months_ now? You want to tell me 'she's not real and never has been'?"

"No. I don't."

"Then what _do _you want?"

He didn't respond at first, as he chose his words carefully, and pressed his ghostly lips tightly together, making them appear white. 

"What do you want, Jack?" I repeated, and I nearly flinched doing so; it was the first time I had directly spoken his name to him in over a decade.

"I came here to warn you," he whispered at last.

"Warn me?" I snorted. "Of what?" Nothing and no one could stop me. Not even Zack had been able to accomplish my submission when he had managed to make every other sibling bow down and extol his worldly deeds.

"If you don't stop this…these killings…something awful is going to happen to you."

"Like what?"

"Something awful."

"You came back from the dead to tell me that 'something awful' is going to happen to me?"

"No, I came back to tell you that you don't need to keep fighting for me anymore."

His words, since unexpected, hit me hard. I bit down on my lower lip hard enough to draw blood, unsure of how to retaliate, and shocked by his statement. 

"Let the dead stay dead, Ben. And, you've got to face it: I am dead."

"They killed you, though."

"Who? Lydecker? His men?"

"The 'nomlies."

Jack laughed, almost in a cynical-but not mocking-fashion and looked up at the glittering stars, which were frosted with steaming clouds and smeared with sunlight. "'Nomlies can wear many faces."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Monsters in the basement should be the least of your worries right now. Monsters that lurk _outside_ of the basement will come to get you…whether you want them to or not." 

"They won't get me," I reassured him.

He arched an eyebrow and met my eyes. "Oh, really?"

"They haven't gotten me yet."

"They're just waiting. Biding their time, if you will. They'll catch up to you eventually…" Then, lowering his voice, he added, "They catch up to all of us…"

"And how would you happen to know so much?" I challenged.

He smiled his typical Jack smile-not at all degrading since he knew more than a person could ever hope to know, but at the same time warm and friendly as he let an outsider in on one of his many secrets. "Ghosts can see everything-can't they?"

I grunted in response, leaning over to spit out some acrid tobacco smoke, which had gathered down in my esophagus, between my feet. Angrily, I scuffed at the wet mark, pulverizing it into the cement with the toe of my black boot as the microscopic pebbles ground against one another to create a low screeching noise of grinding gravel. After a long moment of silence, Jack rose to his feet and stood off to my left, watching me through transparent eyes as I refused to look at him.

"You must leave this place."

"And go where?"

"Wherever. But you must leave here. There are people who are watching you, and they're getting closer."

"What about him?" I asked, giving a nod of my head in the direction of Kyle's Jack who was starting to stir unnaturally on the wet grass many feet away. A low groan trickled out of his beaten body as he collapsed back onto the ground.

"Leave him."

"But, for you-" I began.

"Leave him," Jack repeated, this time with the admirable fierceness in his voice that had beckoned Lydecker to him. "He's not me, Ben. Nobody ever will be for you. You have to accept the fact that I'm not coming back…alive, that is."

"I don't want you to leave," I whispered, wanting to rip my heart out on the ground because of the disgusting emotions that were creeping up the back of my throat. 

"Ben-"

"No," I hissed, "you don't understand. You don't understand what's it like now that we're 

out of Manticore. Nothing makes sense out here. You're supposed to fight for your rights, but they…the police…the people…would rather kill you than allow you to speak out…Zack…he wants me to follow him…wants me to bow down and kiss his goddamned ass…I'm not like them, Jack…I'm not like them at all." Slumping down off the aluminum bench, I crumbled to my knees, clutching my face in my hands, knowing that sobbing was now inevitable. "They're all so perfect…in their lives…in everything…When She stops believing in me…I don't know what to do…you're the only one who understands…the only one…" It was at that point in my babbling that I realized that Jack was no longer beside me. Looking up, I wiped at my nose with the back of my hand, sniffing inward as I did so, and found no trace that my dead brother had visited me. 

Like everyone else in my life, he had left me.

Slowly, with a great amount of pain that I wasn't accustomed to, I rose clumsily to my feet, watching as Jack the Jock heaved himself upward. Reaching inside my coat, I clutched the handle of my knife, figuring that maybe by killing off this Jack, my brother would return to me, when a flash of neon blue caught my eye. Whipping around in a haphazard panic, I caught the vision of a darting human who realized that they had been spotted. Without a moment's hesitation, I knew that the Blue Girl was following me, for some odd reason. 

Finally, I shoved the knife back inside my jacket, irritated and fuming, but I was unable to deny that Jack was indeed right in saying that people were after me. So, I turned towards the perimeter and tensed my muscles up just before launching myself over the chain-link fence. When I had landed on the opposite side and paused to glance back at the now conscious Jack, I heard the whisperings of a steel voice: "X5-493…493…493…"


	16. Chinese Prune

When looked on by an outsider, the people of New York City were the anomalies of the world.

But, like everything else in life, there were exceptions, of course.

The anomalies were not the rich businessmen of the city, who strutted down the street with black leather suitcase in hand, or the twiggy model who, having starved herself for infinite years, was now only hungry for fame. Not the bum who slept by the side of the richest bank in the world with a cardboard sign for food or money hanging loosely on the handle of a cup, or even the scam artists who opened their loaded coats to reveal stolen items that a person could buy "at a low, bargaining price".

Instead, the anomalies were the people who thrived in the back alleys and in the pulsating nightclubs. The people who wept with open sores from needles contaminated with HIV, hepatitis, and other diseases that names had not discovered, all while rubbing their swollen bellies that had developed either from the great amounts of alcohol they consumed or from their abusing boyfriend's sperm. They were the teenagers who danced in whirling leather jackets on tabletops, trashing clubs and screaming obscenities before gunning the engine of their stolen vehicle and disappearing into the night; the stringly covered teenagers who sat on men's tabletops, flashing tightly packed breasts or fleshy asses, or even the young males who had been reduced to scenes of opulent humiliation for the amusement and pleasure of those from above. They were the babies who shrieked in the middle of the night, crying out from hunger and pain, as their tiny hands clawed the air spasmodically, wanting nothing more than to be held. Ultimately, though, their cries were forever deafened by the angry beating of a human bear claw that struck the child back into the heaven from which it came. 

These were the people: the sex slaves, the abused children and women, the merciless pedophilias. These were the claimed anomalies.

Yet, despite their reputations, these were the normal people of the world, who were scorned and degraded by the true monsters in the world's basement. And, it was with the normal anomalies I made my home in New York City, and felt, for one of the few times, that life wasn't nearly as bad as everyone assumed it to be.

I resided in an abandoned apartment building where walls were tinted brown with dried blood and what could have been feces, while puddles of slime and urine gathered in corners. At least one murder or suicide was committed each night, which seemingly surprised nobody. When the gunshots ricocheted down the hallway followed by staccato screeches, I would rapidly snap forward in my rickety bed, remembering nights long ago when gunshots used to wake me in the middle of the night as well. Eventually, though, I would drift off into a fidgety sleep, clutching my gun fiercely and keeping one eye opened at all times. Although these people seemed to fear and respect me, I knew that many crimes could be committed out of fear, and I couldn't take a chance that they would decide to turn on me.

On the third night, during which I was sitting on the decapitated windowsill and watching the gangs gathering below for their midnight hunt, there was a knock on the door that nearly caused the whole room to cave in. "What?" I grunted, not bothering to turn around-but reaching inside my coat to place my hand over the handle of my gun-as the door creaked open. 

"You help?" the tinny voice that entered the room asked. "Momma say you smart…that you know many things." After lingering a minute longer, I turned my head to find myself in the presence of a young Asian female. She was malnourished with the onset of jaundice overtaking her skin and had purple scars on her legs, but her eyes held their position defiantly, daring me to kill her. 

"Help with what?" I snapped, hating to be disturbed.

"Baby," she responded in her broken English and started to twist the thin shirt that hanged sloppily off her fragile shoulders. "Sister. She have baby. We don't know what to do."

I gave an indignant snort. "You want me to help? With a baby?" I leaned back against the windowpane, loosely reclining on the sill so the temperate air kissed my jacket before clawing her tangled hair. "Why should I? It'll just die here anyway."

The girl, now appearing rather distressed, bit down on her bottom lip and rubbed the top of her bare foot with the other. "We pay."

"No."

"Please…we pay good."

"With what?" They had nothing that I would be interested in. Money was no object to me, nor was sexual gratification, for I could receive both with more ease than should have been permitted. The only thing I truly needed, though, was another servant for the Blue Lady. Since Jack's arrival from the dead, I had sunk into a low state of depression and had been neglecting my duties to serve Her. She was becoming impatient with me, and I feared Her anger would ultimately destroy me, sending me away from the Good Place.

"We pay," the girl repeated in the same blatant tone.

"No." 

"Please…my sister…the baby…die."

Finally, overly exasperated with her chirping, I sighed, retracting my hand from my coat. "If I help, will you leave me alone?"

"Yes, we leave alone."

"Fine," I groaned irritably. "Lead the damn way." I didn't want to help her. I didn't want to help any of them, but since I didn't feel like murdering the kid just to get her out of the picture, I figured I might as well check out this doomed baby. Besides, with the baby's innocence, perhaps Her impatience with me would be lifted.

The little girl smiled eagerly and reached for my hand. Her tiny fingers had just clasped my thumb and forefinger when I harshly snapped my hand away from her and glared down at her. "I didn't say you had to _touch_ me…just start walking."

My cruelty seemed to have unfazed her as she turned down the hallway with me in tow. Outside of my room, the apartment seemed no different in the scenery of unknown muck and grime. The only exception to the similarity was part of the hallway that was burned down, and the little girl pointed at it, glancing back to make sure I was still following. "We had fire couple weeks ago."

"Oh," was the only closely intelligent response I could give her while I patted my chest pocket just to make sure that the guns were in their original position; a drunk pissing in the hallway had given me the finger, saying that he was going to come after me. I'd murder the son of a bitch, though, before he would have a chance to even zip his pants up; nevertheless, I needed to reassure myself every once in awhile that I was safe from these people. Finally, after what seemed like hours, the little girl and I arrived outside of a room where horrendous moans echoed forth. "Sister," she chirped. "Sister have baby."

"Just get out of the way," I growled and pushed past her into the room, where a rather beautiful Asian woman, who must have been the sister, squirmed on a bed, muttering in her native language what resembled obscenities. She repeatedly cursed in English as well, most likely angry that her pimp's condom had broken. Next to her, a Chinese prune of a woman cooed soothing words, stroking the sweaty hand of her daughter, and looked up as I entered. 

"You come! Good, you come! You help."

"Help? Look..." I scoffed, holding up my hands in protest. "I don't know anything about babies."

"No. You smart boy. You know."

Arching an eyebrow as to where she drew her assumption, I stated bluntly, "I was told that I'd be paid."

She paused her frantic chattering and smiled through rotten teeth that hanged in a cigarette yellow mouth. "You be paid." Her words, though, were more like a threat than a promise, but I told myself not to worry about people with bad hygiene. 

I groaned, unbelieving that I had actually abandoned my comforting room only to be stuck with a bunch of pigs who didn't even have enough common sense to deliver a baby. As I crouched down at the foot of the bed, I glanced over at the mother, who was starting to panic me in her leering grin. I ignored her and focused on the task at hand. 

Around the base of the sister's spread legs that were covered with a blanket, a dark stain was smeared on the dirty mattress. She bit down on her lower lip, suppressing a scream, before glancing back up to me. Her eyes were electric with fear, and she reminded me of a terrified animal before the slaughter.

"Have the contractions started yet?" I asked her, hoping that the payment they planned to give me would be worth this shit. All I really wanted was to be back, sitting on my windowsill and wondering if that punk in the alley would be dead before morning. I couldn't believe a prized X5 soldier was learning how to deliver babies in the slums of New York City. God, next I'd be playing a pimp to the prostitutes, too.

"Yes, yes, contraction start."

"Water broken?"

Her body instinctively contorted, and she reached for her mother's gnarled hand on the edge of the bed, before she nodded her head, affirming my question. The little sister leaned on the doorway, pressing her gaunt face against the slimy wood, apparently not surprised by the labor scene as if she had seen it before; she failed to notice the rat scampering around her bare feet.

"What is the problem, then?" I questioned, glancing from senseless mother to daughter. "As far as I'm concerned, everything seems to be fairly normal. Water broken, contractions-"

"Baby," the mother interrupted. "Baby no come."

"What?"

The daughter pointed to her bulging belly, which quivered underneath a sheet so thin it was practically transparent. "Baby not move."

"Great…" I grumbled, rolling my eyes up at the same time I did my sleeves. Before starting, I turned to the mother. "I'm being paid for this, I hope you know."

She nodded so earnestly that her whole body bobbed. "You paid. Yes, yes."

Still unbelieving that I was actually kneeling in front of a pregnant woman in full force labor, I lifted up the sheet. Not surprisingly, she didn't seem offended in the least that a male was viewing her naked lower half, but then again, I forced myself to remember what her day job was, and continued onward. 

In Manticore, we had escaped before finishing up our mandatory human anatomy unit, so my knowledge of pregnant females was limited to what I had learned on the streets-which, in truth, wasn't a whole lot. Yet, apparently, I seemed to know more than the frightened Asian women who watched me in fear and wonder as if I was some type of immortal god.

"Everything looks fine…opening's dilated…I don't see why the baby's not moving," I told no one in particular.

"Baby hurt," the sister whimpered.

"Yeah, well, getting yourself fucked over by a rich lawyer will do that to a person," I mumbled into the bed sheets as I wondered how to coax a baby out who preferred the internal cavity of its mother.

There was a stark silence before the mom awkwardly blurted out in her squeaky voice: "Not lawyer."

I glanced upward to meet her raging eyes that were ready to rip my heart out, and she curled her shriveled lip into an ugly sneer as she repeated, "Not lawyer."

"Then who?" I snapped back, annoyed that she, the misfit peon, was challenging me. Nobody, especially, she, the stupid woman who knew nothing about life could rise against me. "Construction worker? Bartender? Actor? Doc-"

"Daddy." Like a bullet screaming out of a gun, all of the heads in the rancid room whipped in the direction of the little girl who stood cowering by the doorway, her eyes large and red with tears. "Daddy did this."

With that comment, the mother rose to her feet and hobbled over to the girl, pinching her by the upper arm and hissing in what sounded like Chinese. Since there was no door to slam shut, I could easily hear the sounds of angry slaps as the mother repeatedly hit the child. Not understanding their native language, I looked upward from my crouched position to see the sister sadly watching the hallway scene.

"Momma not happy," she whispered, forgetting that she was supposed to be giving birth.

I gave a dull grunt, listening intently to the furious words of the mother and screams of the little girl.

"Momma no!" Some hissing in whatever mundane language they spoke. "Please...Momma!" This time only slaps, then a crumbling sound as the little girl inevitably hit the floor of the hallway. "He good, Momma, he good..." But her brave words were ignore by the fury of the mother who continued her horrid beating. 

At that moment, now punched in the face with realization of the abuse children went through, I began to wonder why Zack always insisted that _our_ childhood was bad. 

In the distance, the shrieks subsided just as the sister's contractions started up again, and the birth canal opened enough for me to see that the baby may have been positioned right, but it needed some extra help.

Meeting the sister's sweaty eyes, I ordered, "You've got to push this baby out-got it?"

She nodded weakly, and, clasping the sides of the rickety bed, started what appeared to be a dull attempt at pushing. Finally, after a few seconds, she sighed heavily and shook her sweaty head as wet flaps of hair hit the side of her head. "I can't."

"Try," I hissed.

Again, she tried, but her attempts were all in vain, for nothing appeared to be happening from my viewpoint. This time, tears came to her eyes as she grimaced at me. "It hurt…I-I can't."

Flashing upward to my feet, I whipped out my knife faster than she could follow and waved it menacingly at her. "Listen to me," I growled under my breath so the mother wouldn't hear me, "you push like your goddamn life depends on it or else I'll slit you from chest to bottom, and I'll _get_ the baby out!" 

Terrified, she shrank back against the bed, but began to shove like her life truly did depend on it. I intently watched and timed the contractions so I could order her to push when one would hit her frail body. Suddenly, there was a baby's piercing cry as a tiny head poked out of her body, and the sister choked back a startled gasp. Rushing around to the foot of the bed, I gently helped to ease the baby out of her as the mother came staggering in, followed by the younger sister. 

"A boy!" the mother laughed joyfully, seeing the baby which thrashed in my bloody hands. The knife, although tucked away my coat once again, remained fixated in the sister's mind, and I notice her panicked eyes examining me as I handed the baby to the mother. After wiping back the black hair of the child, the mother went over to sit by her daughter and they cooed over the baby together, obviously pleased with the work that I had done. 

Wiping my bloody hands on my black jeans, I exited the room, nearly oblivious to the little girl who followed me. In my own room, I returned to my original spot on the windowsill, seeing that the gang was still swearing and fighting below. Just as I had pulled out a cigarette to help ease my frazzled nerves, the little girl chirped, "Thank you."

"For what?" I mumbled, lighting the cigarette between my lips.

"For helping my sister. She happy and…Momma happy, too." I looked over at her, replacing my lighter, and noticed new bloody bruises up and down her arms, accompanied by the swelling of her lower lip. Her mother may have been a monster by giving her such external wounds, but I had a suspicion that the father gave her internal wounds to finish the job of full child abuse

"Yeah, whatever…" I blew a stream of smoke outward, finally relaxing, and personally pleased with the work I had accomplished. After all, I would have liked to see Zack try to deliver a baby. This thought produced a chuckle from me, and the little girl stared at me queerly, cocking her head like a dog.

"What your name?" she asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Your name." She laid a hand over her scrawny chest, where a stain of drying blood showed through. "Me Lia."

I paused, examining her childish innocence, and I realized just how similar she was to Jace back at Manticore. Like my long ago colleague, Lia was scared on the inside, strong on the inside, and her hellish gaunt features covered it all. "My name's Ben," I answered.

"Ben…" she mused, then smiled. "Ben. I like it."

"It works, I guess."

A long pause followed in which there was a scream in the alley below, and a person collapsed to the ground, holding his chest, while the rest of the men darted off into darkness. Lia, though, accustomed to the horrors of street life merely carried on without notice. "Ben?"

"What?" I groaned, inhaling cigarette smoke.

"You help me again? Protect me?"

"From what?"

  
"From my daddy."


	17. Thick Black Paint

A week after Lia's sister-who I later learned was named Jada-had her baby, Taji, I was beginning the long and exhausting process of pulling myself out of the depression hole I had sunk into. Regardless of my approaching satisfaction with life, Jack, my brother, would never be forgotten. His frail fingers, spasmodically twitching while he was dragged across the glistening tile floors in Manticore would never be forgotten. His words, "He's not me, Ben. Nobody ever will be for you. You have to accept the fact that I'm not coming back…alive, that is," would never be forgotten. Yet, I was somehow managing-with frequent difficulties-to bridge the gap Jack's departure had left inside of me, and to fill it instead with power and blood for the Blue Lady.

I visited the dark alleys of the most dangerous parts of town, where I was nearly mugged on numerous occasions by a pack of drug addicts with extra big knives, all during my desperate searches for a soul who might have faith in something greater than a gun. I had discovered one decent person, but, to my dismay, he was murdered the next day for the exact reason I was planning to recruit him: strong faith. So, I was once again left without payment to Her, leaving me even more irritable than when I had originally begun.

One night during the middle of my second week stay, I was mixing up a canister of black spray paint I had stolen from the garbage when Lia meandered in my room; I had barely heard her enter over the noise of my rapid shaking. The little steel ball clicking against the sides of the can seemed so unimportant compared to catcalling hookers and screaming men on the other side of the building. Nevertheless, I continued to rapidly shake, hoping that the paint would still be usable, and perhaps the noise would drown Lia out. 

She flopped down on my rickety bed beside of me, grazing my jeans with her stringy hair and grinned up at me through round little teeth. "What doin' Ben?" she asked in her typical crisp little voice.

Since Taji had been born, Lia had begun to spend more time around me as if she actually admired me as a big brother type of person. She was constantly visiting my room merely to babble about her life in the slums of New York City. From her mouth, I heard words wiser than Lydecker could have ever given us about survival of the strongest, and I also heard horrors that I thought the pulse had destroyed. Overall, I had become quite attached to the kid-even if I would continually deny it, brushing off her warm presence like a sugary snack that burned a person's mouth and needed to be discarded-no matter how delicious it tasted.

"Nothing much," I muttered, giving the can one final snap of my wrist as I stood up. Striding over to the opposite wall, I rested my hand thoughtfully against my chin, feeling stubble, several days old, prickle against my knuckles. Yet, if anyone noticed how animalistic I looked, they didn't say anything. Besides, the hookers still liked me-and my never-ending supply of money-so I supposed I couldn't be that ugly.

"You paint?" Lia asked, rolling over onto her belly to prop her chin up on the heel of her hands.

"Uh-huh."

"Paint what?"

"Some words," I responded, unwilling to tell her about my own childhood. She had her own problems to deal with, and they certainly weren't about me and how my own insanity would eventually eat me alive.

"Can you tell me what 'bout?"

"What the words are about?"

"Yup," she grinned through dark hair. "I want to know what words say. I can no read."

"Well," I sighed, knowing that if I didn't tell her, she would continue to relentlessly pester me until I did. So, I reached up, ignoring the bloody stains of murder on the wall and pressed the button on the can, and sprayed thick black paint into letters.

"This word says, 'duty'-"

"What does it mean?"

"Duty? It means a requirement of some sort...something a person is supposed to do. Got it?" I asked, to which she nodded, and I continued talking. "Right here," I said, giving the can another hissing squeeze of the button, "says, 'discipline', which is like training. Punishment." I noticed her instinctive flinch as undoubtedly flashbacks of her abusing parents bit at her, so I quickly changed the subject. "And last of all, this word reads 'mission'-an order given, or maybe a place you're supposed to arrive at." Then, standing back to admire my work, I mused, more to myself than Lia, "Duty, discipline and mission...that's what they say."

Lia paused, glancing from me to the adulterated wall before she rolled off the bed and padded over to the wall, letting her bare feet slap weakly against the grimy floorboards. She bent her thin neck and stared upward at the words slightly above her head. Then, without warning, she reached up, stretching as high as she could, and slapped her thin fingers against the inky paint and watched it seep around her cuticles before pulling her hand away with a sickening suction sound. She gazed in perplexity at the palm of her hand and pressed her lips together in confusion. After a moment of silence as we both watched beads of liquid onyx drip off her skin, she looked up at me with confusion smeared across her face.

"Why?" she asked, still holding her messy hand outward in the same offering position. 

"Why what?"

"Why do you paint words? They good?"

I paused, taken aback before forcing an almost sinister smile, remembering what the words really meant to me. "Yeah, they're good."

"What for?" She continued to stare at her blackened palm, more confused by a simple smear of paint than by gang beatings in her home. Her curiosity with such an asinine object as ink was beginning to trouble me; I couldn't tell what she was planning to do, and children with a plan disturbed me, not to mention children without one.

"They remind me of who I am," I answered her.

"You're Ben."

"Yeah, but..." I trailed off, figuring it best not to expose the Blue Lady. Expose everything I had ever worked for throughout my ten years in the horrid real world. Expose my nightmares and demons that ate me piece by piece in silence every night.

Expose what I really was.

"But what, Ben?"

"Nothing."

"No. You say something."

"Look, it was nothing," I snapped and tightly capped the spray can, pushing past her. Harshly, I plopped down on my bed, throwing the container off to the other side of the room with an irritated flick of my wrist. Running fingers through my oily hair, I stared downward at the dingy floor with my elbows resting on my knees. "Just get out of here," I told her angrily. "Just get _out_."

There was a pause as she stood there, examining the three individual words I had written on the wall. Finally, she strolled over to where I sat, causing me to look up and meet her fiery little eyes; she would not "just get out".

She held her hand out to me, fingers pointed at the cracked ceiling, and palm facing me as if displaying her hand where the black paint was steadily drying in the creases of her skin, leaving an ashen blemish across her yellow tinted skin. Perplexed, I examined her, watching her eyes dart back and forth, and I wondered what kind of bizarre game she wanted me to play with her. Then, with her other hand, she grabbed me by the wrist so that my right hand mirrored hers. 

"I thought I told you to go," I said, but my words held no meaning for her as she continued in the task she had planned.

Gently, but firmly, she placed her paint-coated palm against mine so that we were locked together by our skin. Her thin little fingers disappeared around the backside of mine, and I realized just how physically powerful I was compared to her. From my brutal hands, I could have snapped her neck without even blinking. Yet, I didn't, and instead focused on what was happening to my hand. 

The black paint oozed out between my fingers, leaving cool little trails of dark streams that slowly skied down the back of my hand before disappearing into my gray shirt sleeve. Her eyes held mine, daring me, for once, to be the submissive one as our palms kissed against one another in my room that seemed to be cut off from the rest of the world.

"Lia," I asked, "what are you doing?"

"It just paint," she whispered, ignoring how it dribbled over our cracked skin and bonded us together like blood relatives. "And, Ben? You can't hide behind paint forever."


	18. The Greatest Supermodels

The next evening, I was outside, meditating about my next move, and soaked from the heavy rain even though I was sitting beneath the overhanging roof of the building. Farther down the musty alley, Lia skipped through muddy puddles in her bare feet, giggling happily as the sunset smiled in her pure love of life. Every once in awhile, she'd call out for me to join her, but I would merely raise my hand in protest and shake my head. But my denial didn't seem to faze her happiness for she'd continue to chatter to her imaginary friends and giggle like there was absolutely nothing wrong with her abused childhood in one of the worst neighborhoods that ever existed.

I slid my fingers through my slick hair and wondered if I should start heading into Upper Manhattan for possible people to recruit. Maybe the rich had more faith than the poor did, I mused, and was ready to stand up, when a voice from behind turned my head around.

"May I sit with you?"

Looking upward, I found Jada, Lia's older sister, bending down and clutching her son, Taji to her chest. He gurgled in her arms and thrashed chubby little legs, happy with the warmth of his mother.

"Sure," I grunted.

"Thanks," she replied and slowly eased herself down onto the crumbling cement, heedless of how the mud clung to her worn jeans. "They don't like Taji up there... he cries too much for them."

"Babies do cry."

She pressed her lips together, wondering if I was safe or not-apparently remembering the incident where I had threatened to gut her out-then she asked, "You don't mind if I feed him-do you? I'll keep him quiet."

"What? Feed him?" Then, glancing over at her and seeing her pleading eyes, I shrugged, "Yeah, it doesn't bother me. Better to keep the kid happy than hungry."

Jada smiled faintly as she lifted up a corner of her starched shirt. "Thank you," she responded, and led Taji's bobbing head to a full nipple that he attacked greedily, sucking away in happiness. Gently, the shirt floated back down onto the baby's head as fat raindrops darkened the cloth and saturated her hair. After a moment of silence, she turned to me. "I'm sorry if I interrupted your thoughts...If I go back up there...the men...well," she lamented, "they like to pretend to be Taji, to be perfectly blunt."

I nodded mechanically in understanding, and, not facing her, I remarked to the wall across the alley, "Your English is very good. How come it wasn't that good when you were delivering him?"

"Momma doesn't think girls should be educated." She shrugged aimlessly, causing Taji to give an irritated squeak of protest in the back of his full mouth; Jada, though, ignored him and continued to talk. "Old country thoughts, so I try to act like she wants me to."

"You went to school?"

"No, I read...a lot."

"How?"

"Went down to the local library when Momma was at work and taught myself how to read...how to write...how to be something other than a simple street-rat. I read almost every single book there; the war novels never interested me much, though. Too violent...Besides, I see enough violence every day of my life; I don't think I need to see anymore." She laughed bitterly, a hoarse sarcastic laugh of a person who has been hurt all their life and has finally realized that they will never escape the pain. "After all, libraries couldn't deny a whore. Everyone else could, but libraries didn't."

Unsure of how to respond, I kept my mouth shut, and watched Lia whirling in the raindrops, throwing her head back and catching the only pure water she had ever been given on her pale pink tongue. She giggled, clapping her hands together in glee, and called over to Jada and me. "Ben! Come! Join me! Dance in rain! Jada! Taji like?" But, she didn't bother to wait for our sluggish replies and instead carried on with her riding of pink ponies in a land where mystical unicorns performed pirouettes on the rainbow.

Next to me, Jada sighed heavily, exhausted with the care of a young baby and switched Taji to her other breast which was heavy with milk. She leaned back against the side of the building, gently patting his cotton wrapped butt. Peering up at the sky through the pitted roof, the rain fell down her face, cascading in rivulets and plastering her dark black hair around her face so that only her intense eyes-much like Lia's-remained untouched by the water. 

"I didn't mean that last part," she stumbled nervously, licking her wet lips. "I'm not a whore...or whatever you want to call me...I know you think I am..."

"Perhaps," I admitted curtly, debating about whether or not to leave her. After all, I absolutely had to find someone to give their human flesh for the Blue Lady, yet Jada intrigued me enough to stay and ask, "So, whatever happened to the payment your Mom promised me for Taji's birth?"

  
"Payment?"

"Yeah, the one she kept on insisting on."

"There is no payment."

"What?" 

"There is no payment. Momma lied. She just wanted your help because she noticed how intelligent you are and figured that you'd help Taji to survive because-" Jada didn't finish. "Well, she just wanted your help."

"How'd she know I was intelligent?"

Jada laughed quietly, cradling her son's head in fine fingers beneath her shirt. In another environment her beauty would have rivaled that of the greatest supermodels ever to exist. "You carry guns with you, and you pray. Stupid people don't carry guns. And stupid people definitely don't pray."

"I wouldn't exactly call it praying..." I objected, wondering when "Momma Prune" had noticed me bent over the windowsill, cursing and hissing at the Blue Lady on the many nights I was pushed to the edge of cracking into a sniveling mess of tears and flesh.

"Momma does."

"I figured that."

Again, another awkward pause followed during which she pried Taji away from her chest and gently began to bounce him over her shoulder to ease the gas out of his tiny stomach. Wispy blonde hair curled over his smooth head and tiny fingers clawed at Jada's own raven dark hair.

"So, is that really your father's kid?" I finally asked, pushing forward with the question I had wanted to ask since Lia had screamed it at delivery. 

Jada froze and pressed her lips together so tightly that they turned white around the edges. Taji, giving an angry squawk, forced her back to reality so she would continue to bounce him, but her eyes glared fiercely ahead, unrelenting to burn a hole through the opposite alley wall.

"I don't believe that's any of _your_ business," she hissed.

"Look, I was just askin-"

"I _know _what you were just asking!" she growled, whipping her head around to face me. "I know-all right? I know. What does it mean to you? What?"

"If Lia's a liar or not." Then, lowering my voice, I added, "and to know how much I have to protect Lia from him."

"Protect? Lia?"

"She asked me to. He doesn't seem to be much of the fatherly type of guy."

"No. He's not." And before I could speak, she added solemnly, unable to lie directly to my face, "But, if you really must know. Yes, Taji is my father's son."

"Couldn't you stop him?" I asked incredulously, appalled that she could be so stupid to allow something as drastic as a pregnancy to happen to her.

Cocking her head, she grabbed my eyes and questioned, "How old do I look to you?"

"What?"

"How old?" 

I eyed her over, noticing the faint wrinkles around her eyes, how loose skin hanged sloppily around her tanned wrists, the dark circles, and gaunt ankles poking out beneath grimy jeans. "Twenty-six? Maybe twenty-three?"

Jada chuckled briefly out of pure insanity that the slums had given her, before looking back up to my eyes. "Try nineteen. So, how exactly is a simple..._stupid_...teenager supposed to defend herself against a forty-some man who is taller than you are-making him probably..." she paused and eyed me up and down, trying to estimate my height in comparison, "probably six foot five, and is a bear of a man of three hundred pounds pure muscle.

"Then again," she shrugged, "it's not like you would know anything about that kind of stuff anyhow. Being afraid and trapped, that is. I bet you've had anything you've ever wanted in life. You've probably had a good home, warm food, people to love you, and money to spend. You're not abused or misused." She shook her head, bending down to ease sleeping Taji into a cradle of her arms. "You're not your father's sex slave."

Shocked, I turned to look at her, silently weeping against Taji's little body, and for the first time since I had arrived, I began to think more about just how badly these people were suffering, while I reigned above them, oblivious to their pain. Ignoring the impatience of the Blue Lady, I peered closely at Jada, trying to determine exactly what she was alluding to. "What did you say?" I questioned.

"You heard me," she whispered, brushing a piece of wet hair out of her eyes, only to have it fall right back in her face. "I know you heard me...But that doesn't matter because George will leave me alone now because he got himself a son."

"George?"

"My father...Taji's father..."

"Oh."

"But like I said, I'm safe now. There's finally a son for him to be happy with."

"Finally?" I echoed. "You mean there's been others?"

She nodded blankly, and a little whimper of acknowledgement escaped from the back of her throat. Despite her pain, though, she concealed her sorrow wonderfully, not allowing a single tear to escape from her eyes.

"Did they live?"

"Some did."

Swallowing to moisten my dangerously dry throat, I pushed myself to ask, "And what happened to them?" It was the question she had apparently been waiting for. The question that would reveal everything she had ever known. And, of course, I, the misfit of the world and Manticore, had asked it.

Turning to look at me, her poignant eyes glistened with tears in the fading sunset, blocked by hidden misery and ugly truths. In the distance, storm clouds rolled, warning of the storm that would soon arrive. "Look there, Ben," she said, "and you tell me what happened." Then, as she looked away, I followed her eyes to the dancing figure of Lia, ignorant to her sister's terrible agony.

"Lia?" I gasped, more horrified than I had been in a long time. "Lia? She's your-" And, even though I had sneered at serial killers, whispered to a fanciful figurine, and spat at the government, I couldn't say the truth I had just discovered of a woman whose only fault in life was that she had been born in the slums of New York City.

As if she were ready to vomit from her answer, Jada weakly replied, "Yes," and gazed outward at the giggling little girl. "You can say it, Ben. She is my daughter. The only one that survived. The only one out of many miscarriages...but she survived." Painfully, a single salty tear trickled down her dirty face and dribbled down over her chin, as she whispered, "My daughter actually survived..."


	19. Tumultuous Mind

As time progressed, my relationship with Lia, Jada and Taji became even closer-the mother still seemed to hate me for merely being me, though, so I learned to ignore her. Lia continued in her nightly visits, always eager to learn about the world that lived beyond steel giants in the sky. She was attentive and continuously happy-a fact that I admired about her, since my own childhood was just one big mass of tears and blood. Never before I had met a child-or anyone else, for that matter-who could be so utterly cheerful without being drunk on something.

Jada occasionally stopped by as well, although she apparently failed to remember our conversation in the rain. Since George had abandoned them for nearly a month, she remained optimistic that he wouldn't come at all and Taji would continue to be safe. I, though, couldn't understand Taji's esteemed position in their screwed up family circle, and why he was so utterly important, besides the fact that he was male. 

Then again, curiosity killed the cat-didn't it?

One particular night, Lia was in my room babbling away as I sat on the windowsill, more depressed than I should have been over the loss of yet another recruit. It was being to seem as if someone was purposely killing my people, but I was able to dismiss that thought under the logic that nobody knew where I was, so how could they be killing off my people with reason? Yet, I was beginning to figure that if I believed a person showed even the slightest bit of potential for the Blue Lady, I should just immediately bring them to the apartment and keep them safe.

Unfortunately, with my depression from all the deaths and failures came irrational mood swings of pain and anger, confusion and lust. I didn't even know who I was anymore. Ben? X5-493? Just another damn fool in the world? In truth, I was starting to consider investing into some rather harsh drugs just to ward off the feelings until I could calm down.

"What you think?" Lia suddenly question, bursting through my thoughts with her cute little voice that a person just wanted to grab like a fat aunt at Christmas and pinch by the cheek.Since I hadn't been listening to her, I had to ask, "Think about what?"

"Think 'bout a pet for me and Taji. Jada no want pet. She say they make much noise."

"I think a pet is a big responsibility."  
"A puppy too? I know I can no get pony...but puppy?"

"Even a puppy. I mean, somebody has to walk it, feed it, play with it, water it...Somebody's got to take care of it."

"I would."  
"You think you can?" I asked, giving a sidelined glance to her. "It'd take a lot of time and energy."

"Yup." She slid off my bed, walked over to me, and looked up where I rested on the ledge, swinging my leg loosely. "Here. I show you. You be puppy."

"Me?" 

"Yes. I show you I take care of puppy."

"But, I-"

"It not hard be puppy."

"What if-"

"Why not?"

"It'd be...No, I'm not going to act like a dog."

"You afraid."

"No," I responded unsteadily even though, in truth, I may have been afraid of what happiness could do to me if I let it linger close enough.

"Please?" she pleaded with an irresistible look that even made me soften. "Please, Benny?"

Sighing that I was actually taking orders from a six year old, I hopped off the windowsill, and stared down at her. "All right, what do I do now?"  
"Get on hands and knees."

I lowered myself to the dirty floor, ignoring the dust and bugs gathered in the corners. My good jeans would definitely be getting filthy from this, but I figured that some late night cat-burglaring could get me a nice pair of pants later on. In my baby position, I looked up at Lia and cocked my head. "Like this?"

"Yep. Now, come puppy," Lia said and began to walk away from me.

"I actually have to walk?"

"Uh-huh."

"I can't believe..." I muttered, but shook my head in disbelief nonetheless and followed her around on my hands and knees. I shuffled towards her, nearly catching the toe of my boot in some loose floorboards and falling flat on my face. But, even after my stumbling around, Lia still "tsk, tsk"-ed me like she couldn't believe what a terrible puppy I was making out to be.

"No, no, no," Lia giggled. "You got to sound like puppy."

"Sound?" I asked incredulously, wondering what she wanted me to do now. Getting down on my hands and knees was one thing, but actually making puppy dog noises? Unexpectedly, I remembered the fierce German Shepherds back at Manticore that had literally ripped up soldiers for running away. It surprised me that they hadn't killed our unit when we had escaped. A little shiver trickled down my spine as it did time to time when past memories came back to me; as strong as I was now, my child counterpart had been equally weak. And the childish fears still remained with me and enjoyed stabbing me in the brain every once in awhile.

"Yeah," Lia replied, "like this." In demonstration, she gave a little bark and grinned back at me.

Pausing for a moment, I finally grunted, "Bark."

"No, no, Benny," she said, "you really got to bark."

"Uh...woof, woof, woof! Grrr...I'm a fierce dog...Grrr..."

She sighed and crossed her frail arms around her chest. "You not very good puppy. You got to sound like puppy. How I supposed to take care of puppy if you no act like one?"

That time I barked. I growled playfully, following her eagerly around the room with weak yips and yaps. Occasionally, she'd reach down with her grimy little hand and pat me on the head. "Good puppy," she said. "Now, sit puppy."

I plopped my butt down and sat as obediently as I could. If I had tail, it would have been frantically wiggling because I was so hyped up on being a puppy.

"All right?" Lia asked, holding her fingers above my head as if she contained a treat for "Puppy Benny" and I would really eat it. "If you can do a trick, then I'll give you treat."

I raised my paw up and held it out to her in mimicry of dog shaking hands. 

"Good Benny!" she praised and pretended to hand the treat to me, which I accepted eagerly. Just as she was patting my head and praising me for being such a well behaved dog, somebody cleared their throat behind me. Embarrassed, I choked on my air, since I had pretended to be chewing, and whipped around, while Lia cried, "Jada!" and ran to her supposed sister happily.

"See Jada? I take care of Benny. Can I have puppy now? Please, Jada? Please?"

Jada gave a confused glance from Lia who had eagerly wrapped her arms around Jada's legs, to me who was still sitting on the floor. "Let's think 'bout it," she replied, speaking in that horridly deformed voice her mother required. "We ask Momma and we talk. Maybe she let us."

"Yay!"

"It bedtime now, though. Momma want you go to bed."

"Not yet, Jada..."

"Yeah, it time to sleep."

"Five minutes?"

"No."

"Two?"  
Jada laughed. "By time you get to Momma, it will be two minutes. Maybe you can play with Ben later."

"Okay," Lia chirped, then came back over to me, patted me on the head and dashed out of the room, singing happily to herself.

I rose to my feet, brushing off my horribly dirty clothes and trying to determine if there was a hole in my jacket. While I was in the process of trying to straighten out my mussed hair, I gave a rather flustered smile to Jada, trying to convince her that I really wasn't as insane as I may have appeared. 

"She just wanted to...you know, see what taking care of a puppy was like."

"I see."

"I mean, I don't always act like that."

"I know, Ben. Don't worry about it," Jada replied as she eased herself down on the bed. "You meant well."

"Not everybody would think so."

"No," she agreed, leaning back and crossing her legs, "not everybody would."

I sighed heavily to myself and went back over to the window, feeling drained of any happiness I had contained up to that point. Like usual, my brain was deciding to play ping pong with my emotions, sending me into wretched depression again. Resting my elbows on the ledge, I wondered how I could be so cheerful and now feel so utterly melancholy.

"Ben?" Jada asked, rising to her feet from behind me. The floorboards barely creaked under her delicate step instead of screaming like they did when I pounded over them.

I grunted in response.

"You seem really upset...More upset than I've seen somebody in a long time. Are you okay?"

I laughed hoarsely. "Mentally or physically?"  
"Either."

"Then, no."  
"What happened?"

"Call it a bad childhood," I replied sarcastically, wondering in the back of my mind how many shots of liquor it would take to put me into a coma.

"Did you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Why not?" 

I turned to look at her standing there only a couple feet away from me. Her dark black was pulled behind her ears, cascading down her back, and her skin was perfectly clear and glowed underneath my dreary lamp from above. Her breasts hanged heavy with milk, and eyes were powerful in their humbleness. Above all, she was absolutely gorgeous and wonderfully intelligent, but I didn't want her to become part of my tumultuous mind.

"You wouldn't understand," I responded, unable to look at her.

"What wouldn't I understand?"  
"Everything."

"Try me," she whispered.

"What?" Her words were spoken so harshly that I wondered why she thought she couldn't actually even _attempt _to understand me.

"Ben, I've seen life, I've seen death, and I know the horrors that can come in between. God, Ben, I had a miscarriage at the age of nine, another at eleven, then gave birth to Lia at the age of thirteen, three more after that-only one lived long enough for me to name her-and then Taji was born when I was nineteen. I've been raped by my own father, forced to succumb to prostitution to get money for Lia to live, and I've attempted suicide on more than one occasion..." She sighed, her breath a ragged heave of pain. "You have no idea the kind of things I've seen. Nothing you can say will surprise me."

I shook my head, trying to push her away as my hands clasped the edge of the windowsill tightly, prepared to snap the wood right in half. "No..." I whispered. "No...I can't."

Gently, she laid her hand on my shoulder, causing me to face her in astonishment. Her eyes remained focused in their same high position, bearing straight down in my soul. I probably could have told her everything about my horrid life, and I doubt that she would have even blinked. Yet, her hand came up and stroked the side of my face that I had somehow managed to shave that morning. Inhaling sharply, I nearly backed away from her and ran, having never been touched so tenderly. Not daring to exhale, I felt her smooth thumb run over my eyelid, easing my eyes closed, and then both of her hands were on my face, stroking the curvature of my nose and the thick strands of hair. And even though my eyes were closed and I felt absolutely delirious, I knew that she was staring at me. Staring at me and wondering how a human could be made so perfectly. Then, she'd discover my barcode and it would all be over.

I opened my eyes to find her just looking at me with pity on her face. "You've been through a lot-haven't you?"

I swallowed, breathing for the first time in many extended seconds, and whispered, "Yes."

Then, she did something I hadn't expected: She kissed me so very softly on the cheek, that I wondered if I had just imagined it. But, when she backed away, almost embarrassed, muttering something about how Lia would need her if something happened, I knew that it wasn't a dream. 

I caught her by the wrist underneath my thick fingers, and whispered her name, suddenly filled with sorrow and longing all at once. She knew what it was like to be hurt. She knew more than Zack knew. God, she knew, and she wasn't even from Manticore.

When she turned to face me, eyes full of questions and worry, my hand came up, and stroked the back of her head. "Ben..." she whispered, searching my face for answers that I would never give under normal conditions, and I could only smile painfully. Unknowingly, I began to kiss her. At first, her lips remained closed and body frozen, all rigid under my touch, and then, like clay, she began to soften. In the back of her throat, she sighed, letting hot air flow inside of me and warm my cold, unrelenting innards. Finally, when her lips opened underneath mine, her body went limp, and she threw her arms around my neck. 

Slowly, with great carefulness, I eased her down on the bed, positioning my knee next to her hip, while I balanced myself with one foot still on the ground. Our kisses were slow and long, barely allowing us to come up for air, and I thanked my creators that I could go for nearly five minutes without breathing. She tasted of unnamed sweetness and her fingers were like silk ribbons trailing themselves around my neck, touching the area where my barcode lay undiscovered in the night. My hands were caressing the back of her head, afraid to go any farther and add to the injuries she had already been given. 

In that horrid apartment, in that decrepit room and on that rickety bed, I kissed a person who, it seemed, knew exactly what my life was like. Kissed her fragile lips that opened for me and sucked away all of my resentment. Kissed away all my childhood pain because she herself knew what that was like. Knew what it was like to be slapped around in an environment where children should not have been born. Yet, we had been born nonetheless, unwanted and unloved, and somehow managed to survive. 

And, at last, after falling asleep in each other's arms, heedless of the nightmares that ultimately lay ahead and would rip us apart, my depression finally disappeared, and I was powerful again.


	20. Cocky Dead Man

Oozing like cold mucus, the paint slugged onto the wall, clogging up the nearly microscopic hole on the can my hand held. "Duty, discipline, and mission," I whispered to myself before chugging down a burning shot of a deadly alcoholic mixture that would leave most people writhing in agony. "These are the words that shall save me forevermore." I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand, ignoring the warm saliva and crusted blood that peeled off onto my skin, accompanied by the stench of day old saliva. "These are the words that shall save me from the pits of Hell." Another spurt of black paint splattered onto the wall, forming the sloppy "n" of mission. "To you, my Lady, I pray for salvation. To you, my Lady, I pledge my blood and flesh. To you, my Lady, I offer my soul in return for redemption." I guzzled the remainder of my alcohol potion down my throat until the bottle was void of any more liquid fire. Nearly delirious and swooning under the booze, I tossed the glass bottle off into a far off corner, letting it smash against a wall and sending a rat squealing off into another direction. "Duty, discipline, and mission," I repeated, and stepped back to admire my handiwork. 

Across the walls of my room, the words "duty", "discipline", and "mission" glistened of wet paint and grinned back at me, pleased that I was once again all powerful. Pleased that I hadn't totally abandoned the Blue Lady.

Pleased I would kill again.

Having discarded the beer, which left me wickedly electric, I strode over to the cracked mirror I had set up over on the far wall of my room. I stared at myself, dressed in the starched black jeans, my heavy dark coat with high collar, and the black cheap T-shirt underneath; all the clothes I had been wearing-with an occasional wash-since Chicago, considering that I hadn't truly had time to change since Florida. Suddenly, the clothes seemed horrid, purely awful as if they were suffocating me and destroying all of the adrenaline that was building up in my veins. 

I had to get them off before they sucked away my power.

My fingers, smeared with black paint, fumbled with the dark, leather belt, not bothering to pull it through the loops, but merely letting it hang like a dead snake with a tongue of metal clinking against its metal teeth. Tearing off my jacket and shirt, I immediately felt my pores sigh in relief that they had been freed from that dingy prison of clothing. Unfortunately, with the air, came the coldness, causing my arms to prickle, but I managed to push the chill away, focusing only on what nightmares lay ahead. It was then that I stopped, bare-chested and belt hanging loosely at my waist, wondering if anyone would come bursting into the room. Chuckling to myself, I thought, Ben, you are a fool, and I reminded myself there wasn't a single person in that building who could literally disappear before someone's very eyes in a blur like I could. With flashing fingers, I untied the thick-soled boots and dropped them in a dead heap on top of my other clothing, accompanied swiftly by a pair of wretched smelling socks. Then, at last, I undid the top button on my pants and slid out of those, leaving paint smears on my thighs where my fingers had rubbed against the skin when I removed my pants. And, since, I didn't bother with such wasteful things as a "male undergarment"-better known to the common world as boxers or briefs-I was standing, fully nude in the middle of my room, freed from that horrid clothing.

Naked, I admired myself in the dingy glass, fully confident that no one could defeat me in both my strength and beauty. I breathed in deeply, watching my diaphragm expand to accommodate the newly delivered air, and how my chest muscles were highly defined, rounded in exactly the right places that college kids took deadly steroids to achieve. Extending my arm outward, I clenched my hand into a fist as biceps muscles flexed and triceps swooned to the point of perfection, and I grinned, remembering the feel of crumbling vertebrae beneath my fingers-strength would not be a problem for me to find that night. My thighs, sculpted to Greek god's might, supported my firm body, while the rest of my eager muscles all quivered with excitement, knowing what was in store for them. Covering the pulsating muscles, my skin was perfectly immaculate and darkened with a gorgeous tan from my weeks down on the Florida beaches. 

After nearly two and a half weeks, I had found somebody.

Outside, the sky was ominously black with the night storm that had been approaching the city for a few days now, and heavy rain splattered against the window, seeping against the wood and rattling the windowpane. In the far distance, beyond the towers of the metropolis, I knew it was going to be a deadly night for all of us. For the strong and powerful. For the weak and passive.

Admiring my seductiveness and power for a moment longer, I at last turned away, redressing because I had at last been freed from my prison of clothing, and had just shoved two guns inside of my black vest when there came a piercing scream from down the hallway. Instinctively, I glimpsed upward, but shrugged it off, dismissing it as just another murdered hooker. Besides, I had a mission tonight, and I couldn't be bothered with such trivial manners. Yet, the cry came again, and slowly, I opened my door, glancing down the hallway for anything out of the normal, but nothing appeared to me. The drunks still lay unconscious and scanty clothing still hanged from doorknobs. Pinching my eyes to narrow slits, I turned back around into my room until the choked shriek formed a single word, "B-_en_!" 

Lia.

Without debating between my obsessed hunt and her tiny life, I dashed out my door. I was bounding over comatose bodies in the hallway and whipping over the floor so fast my feet nearly slipped out from underneath me as I hurtled around corners. Again, the scream came, this time filled with tears and absolutely terrified, "Ben! Please! Ben!" 

"Lia!" I yelled, praying I wouldn't be too late. "Lia! I'm coming!" I flew over the charred part of the hallway that produced a massive hole in the building-a route that was smartly avoided by the normal people-landing precisely in front of Lia's room in a loosely crouched position. I burst inside the room with the strength of ten thousand men, prepared to kill, and was met not with the eyes of an evil villain, but with the fading eyes of Jada instead. She was curled up into the fetal position on her bed, covering her head with fragile hands as blood gushed from her nose and a cut on her head. The eyes I had once known to be so utterly strong were now quivering with approaching unconscious. A quick scan of the room showed me Lia who was huddled in a corner, tears trickling over fresh bruises, as a man pressed a hand against her throat, threatening to destroy her.

"Where is your savior now?" he mocked, spitting an acrid wad of chewing tobacco directly into her face, causing her to gag and snivel. The brown mess dribbled over her closed eye, swollen nearly to the size of a walnut, before oozing down her chin. "Where is this Ben who is going to save you?"

"Right here," I growled.

The man I assumed to be George lifted Lia with one hand still around her throat, leaving her suspended in the air, and he turned to face me. All of Jada's descriptions had been correct; he was a rough six foot five, taller perhaps, and probably averaged two hundred fifty pounds. His large forearm, tanned with a golden business watch on the end, held Lia high. The clothing he wore resembled mine in the sense that it wasn't rags or cheap lingerie like the rest of the population in the slum, but more fashionable. Wearing a pair of loose blue jeans, a teal button down shirt underneath a brown leather jacket, he obviously maintained a well paying job outside of his monthly rape of his daughter. He tilted his brunette head back and laughed. "This is the almighty god that'll save you? Lia, you are a fool. He's nothing. You ass, Lia, I'll kill him with my bare hands."

"No, you won't," I argued.

"Good. He's a cocky dead man, too."

"Let her go, George."

In a graceful fluid motion, George pulled a gun from his jacket and aimed it squarely between my eyes so that the gaping black hole remained only a couple millimeters away from my skin. Behind him, Lia spasmodically jerked as her red face began to change to a purple color from the lack of oxygen. Jada wasn't moving-I was unable to tell if she was still conscious-but her blood still flowed onto the bed sheets where she had delivered Taji. 

Taji. What had happened to him?

"You want me to let her go?" George sneered. "I'd like to see you try."

"Bring it on," I chuckled, and before he could respond, I launched myself at him.

In a superhuman flash, I snatched the gun right out of his gigantic hand, while simultaneously reaching inside my vest and pulling out my own pistol. Once the guns were safely in my possession, I elbowed him so vehemently in the nose that I heard a cracking sound, followed by a pop of blood, causing him to curse and drop Lia in a heap. My entire movements were blurred flashes that no one would have been able to catch until I slowed down to move protectively in front of Lia, who lay hacking up a yellowish tinted mucus in the corner. I raised the two guns high and pointed them directly downward at the bleeding George. 

"You bastard...I should kill you right now."

He grinned, revealing blood smeared teeth that glistened under the light. "You wouldn't kill me in front of Lia and Jada. I'm their father after all."

"And what have you done to Jada to get that honor?"

"That isn't any of your goddamn business," he warned, rising stiffly to his feet.

"I make it my business when people I care about get hurt."

"Caring is a weakness," he mocked, and for a brief moment, I saw Donald Lydecker standing in front of us during a class shouting in our faces, grabbing us by the shoulders, twisting our arms until we screamed. "Caring is a weakness! If you care, I swear I'll destroy you myself! Got it-soldier?!"  
Powered by my old, hellish nightmares, I advanced towards George, wanting nothing more than to break every damned bone in his body. "Get the hell out of here!" I bellowed at him, feeling powerful rage burn up inside of me. "Get out of here, NOW!" 

"And why would I want to do that?"

The man was an idiot.

"Because I'll kill you, that's why! Come back here again and I swear I'll remove the only thing that gives you pleasure in life. I'll slice it off and turn you into a goddamned female, and then you'll know what it's like to be raped!" 

George narrowed his malicious eyes at me just before I launched into all-out gunfire. Rapidly, I began to shoot at him, clipping him in the leg and the shoulder. He screamed once and scuttled blindly out of the room, cursing under his breath and leaving a trail of dark blood behind. Once I knew that he was gone, I dropped the guns in a clatter and fell to my knees, wanting, for the first time, to hold Lia just so I knew she was still beside me. 

Still alive.

Without my asking, Lia, more bruised and bloody than I had seen a living person in a long time, threw her arms around my neck and buried her face in my shoulder. Her thin arms where her bones protruded from beneath the skin were cold against me, and her tiny body heaved as she sobbed for the first time in my memory. Wrapping one arm around the back of her body, I stroked the back of her head, whispering that everything would be ok and pulling her closer to me.

"You came," she cried into my dark jacket. "You came, Ben."

"I wouldn't leave you."

"He killed Momma. Took Taji."

"He what?"

"Momma dead. Pushed her out window. Taji gone. Gone...gone...gone..." Her tears, hot and painful, fell against my skin, and all I wanted to do was heal her pain. Make her the happy child in the rain again. 

"No..." I whispered, remembering sweet little Taji who had never done a single thing wrong in his entire life.

"You must find him."

"Who?"

"Father. Find him and-" She didn't finish, but I knew what she wanted me to do nonetheless. Her innocent tongue would not acknowledge the punishment George deserved. But, my hand and anger certainly would acknowledge punishment and torture for that bastard.

"But you-and Jada-what will you do?"

She pulled herself away and met my eyes, peering through tears and the massive swelling of one eye to properly see me. I noticed that there was a dried smear of blood forming on the abscess of her upper lip. "You come for us, Ben. You must come for Taji now. Save him like you did when he born. You must be savior now. Save all of us."


	21. Tiny Body

Irony. The dictionaries of Manticore, crisp and clean, defined it as, "A figure of speech conveying meaning through words of opposite meaning". My definition, though, was much less and much more confusing: My life.

Irony was a factor that would control my existence from the very day I was created inside a test tube, until my last minute alive, wherever that would present itself. It was ironic that my siblings and I had escaped from Manticore, considering we were supposed to be brainwashed into _not_ escaping. It was ironic that I had entered New York City in the slums, since I typically viewed those types of people below myself and tended not to associate with them, let alone come to care and-dare I say-love them. And, irony was at its best that stormy night as I scuttled across the tops of buildings. I may have lost my sacrifice for the Blue Lady, but the hunt still remained in full glory. I would get what I had come for: A death.

Like a nocturnal demon, I moved across rusted fire escapes and climbed gutters, safely keeping myself above ground so I could attempt to find George. His expensive cologne and occasional footprints in the mud left a lingering trail, and I noticed both of these with keen expertise. If he thought he had an upper hand in this game, he had obviously never dealt with a highly trained transgenic murderer. 

The tracks reappeared again, more definite in their shape and size, and I knew at once that they had to be his. Swinging down from the twisted ladder, I fell neatly to the ground, landing on both feet. I followed the footpath with my eyes to see that it led into what would have appeared to be a dead end fence if the prints hadn't neatly disappeared in front of the planks, that was. Grinning slyly to myself at the stupidity of George, I scurried closer, pressing my body against the crumbling brick wall of the alleyway and slunk over to the fence. 

Pausing for a moment, I listened to what could possibly be happening behind the fence. Unable to clearly hear anything over the drumming rain, which was increasing in velocity every second, I pressed my ear against the fence. Several voices, ranging from baritone to tenor pitch, floated through the cheap plywood and arrived upon my ear. They were muffled, allowing me to only hear snippets and phrases, and some didn't even speak English, yet I continued to listen nonetheless.

"...ship 'em out tonight...What? I don't want 'em..."

"Who 'dey goin' to 'dis time? Skip?"

"...not him...he don't want it..."

Suddenly, there was a baby's piercing cry, and I heard an angry bellow that only George could deliver: "Shut the hell up-would ya?"

A sinister chuckle followed George's voice. "Can't keep the kid in line-huh?"  
"You can shut up, too."

"....yours? Or that fucking whore you sleep with?"  
"He's hers."

Instantly, I knew that I had found both Taji and George. Gracefully, I slipped my two guns out of my vest, checked to make sure they were fully loaded with fresh clips, then eyed the fence over for some kind of opening. Through a few simplistic maneuvers of the boards, I managed to silently sneak my way inside the group's hideout.

The entrance opened up into a long hallway, which turned to the right, and from there a weak light could be seen. Using my genetically given grace, I skulked down the hallway, scanning the area for possible intrusion every other second. Once I had reached the turn in the hall, I peeked around the corner and saw that the door to whatever room they had was closed. The door, with a window of frosted glass, allowed me to see the shadows moving behind it. Just as I had reached for the handle and was ready to burst inside to blow off some heads, a large hand clamped down on my shoulder.

"You'd better have a damn good reason for being here," the gruff voice demanded.

"Yeah," I sneered, "I'm the hit man sent by a six-year-old." And with that, I shot out one hand and crunched the man's neck in a grasp that was unattainable even to some robots. Without waiting, I then turned to the door, brought one leg up beneath me and smashed the door right off of its hinges. The actual doorframe splintered, while the bulk of it flew across the room, sending glass dancing into a million pieces. Taji, in the distance, was terrified of what was happening and began to wail.

"That's him!" I heard George yelling. "That's the bastard who shot me!"

As if by order, three men came rushing up to me, sizable guns drawn and prepared to kill. In three rapid jerks, I sent bullets flying at the trio, striking each in the heart, and they collapsed to the ground with a groaning lurch. My left gun stopped a shriveled man from stabbing me in the back, and just as I thought I was the victor, a bullet ripped through the flesh on my upper arm.

Whipping around to the source of the perpetrator, I found myself face to face with George, who held Taji crudely in one arm. For a villain, he had one lousy aim. A lousy aim that had given me the chance to destroy him forever. Unfortunately, just as I had angled a gun at him, he brought one of his own to Taji's temple and grinned evilly at me.

"Kill me, and he dies as well."

"Your battle isn't with him."

"Put your guns down, Ben, and I'll let him go."

I paused, watching Taji, now silenced with duct tape, squirm in his father's grasp. Maybe I could have tried to shoot George, but with my luck, Taji would have been killed in the process. Finally, with arthritic gestures, I set the guns down on the floor, and glared at George from my standing position.

"Let him go," I ordered.

"Not quite," George responded and dropped Taji into a gunnysack lying off to the side. With the knot firmly tied, Taji thrashed inside, kicking and screaming through the duct tape. After imprisoning and laying Taji on a table, George turned to me and grinned. "You are a bigger coward and a fool than Lia claimed you to be."

"'Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once'," I repeated in a snarl, using the famous quote a teacher back at Manticore had taught us as a reminder of what courage really meant. Shakespeare and Manticore-who would have thought? As George could only gape, I launched myself at him. Like a plowing ram, I threw my entire weight into the blow, so we toppled through a thin plywood wall, creating splinters that bit our flesh. I wrapped my hands around his neck, prepared to murder, when a tinny cry of, "Ben!" ripped my head around.

Behind me, Lia came rushing up, following by Jada, who was bleeding and crying out for her daughter to come back. "Lia, no!" I shouted at her. "Go!" But, my words were all in vain, for as soon as I had forgotten about George, he lifted his gun and pulled the trigger. There was a deafening blast which separated us, and suddenly everything began to move in slow motion before my eyes. Lia's tiny body lurched forward, like she had been punched in the stomach, and I saw her face go white with horror. "NO!" I frantically bellowed, watching her collapse to the ground. "No!" Jada's words of warning became one long, continuous shriek as she stumbled down beside Lia. In a maddening fury, I turned to George, who was scrambling away from the hideout. 

With lightning speed, I dashed after him, and hurled him to the ground, where I grabbed his head in my hands and began to strike it against the hardened dirt of the alley floor. Adrenaline rushed through my veins, and I felt powerful and uncontrollable. Logic no longer mattered, and all of my actions were derived from hatred and wrath. Over and over, I slammed his head against the dirt. Pieces of jagged flesh writhed underneath my fingers, and a dark pool of blood began to form around his head.

"You fucking bastard!" I screamed at him. "Fucking bastard!" When I momentarily paused, he reached up with one hand to claw my face in retaliation, and I lost it. 

Absolutely lost it. 

I should have known better. Really, I should have.

I tore out my knife and sliced off his vile hand first, causing it to fly across the alley. His stump of a hand revealed only a jagged bone and tendrils of ruptured blood vessels and nerves. Then, I launched into his body, severing open organs, which glistened in the moonlight and soon became saturated in the pounding rain. Pink muscle was hacked away, and greasy yellow fat was thrown off to the side as I cut into him. Pushing past intestines, which draped across my arm until I slashed them apart, sacs and pockets of rank waste products ruptured inside of his dying body. I stripped him of his skin, leaving his legs as only fibrous stumps of mutilated flesh and gore. Driving the steel blade through his eyes, where blood ran like tears, I hacked into his skull, until I was able to retrieve his brain and destroy that with the rage of ten thousand armies. 

My arm with the knife became one powerful hammer, just slashing into him again and again. Crimson liquid sprayed into my hair and over my skin, staining my clothes and soul. Then, with one long roar, I thrust the knife into his exposed heart, and slumped over the carcass, gasping heavily as plasma converged around what was left of George. My whole body trembled from pure exhaustion, and I was soaked from head to toe in either rain or blood. 

In the distance, beyond the storm, I heard a pitiful moan, and my mind remembered the real horror of the evening: Lia. 

Jerking my knife upward and out of him, I hurried inside the hideaway to discover Jada crouched over Lia, weeping. Jada looked up as I entered, but said nothing.

"No..." I moaned. "No, no, no..."

As I slumped down to my knees, Jada allowed me to gather Lia's frail little body in my arms and hold her close. Weakly, Lia's eyelids fluttered open, and she gazed up at me through those gorgeous eyes that had peered inside of my darkened soul.

"Ben..." she wheezed.

"I'm right here," I whispered. "I'm right here...nothing's going to happen to you."

"Not be mad at me...I wanted to help you...Father hurt you...You not know..."

"I know, I know, Lia. I understand. He's gone now, he's all gone." I was close to hysterics and I wondered why she wasn't, considering that I was the one drenched in her father's blood.

"Just help you...Save you..."

"_I_ was supposed to save _you_."

"You did...You get rid of Father." Her voice was so dangerously low that I had to lean my head closer to hear her. There was a long pause during which she shallowly inhaled and exhaled, and Jada and I both sat in rapture, frightened of the future. At last, Lia spoke. "Ben?"

"Yes?"

"I...I...have to t-t-ell you...something..."

"Anything," I urged, "anything."

"I...lo-love...you...Ben-ny..." Faintly, a smile tugged at the corners of her bluish tinted lips. "I always lo..."

"God, Lia," I whispered, taken so starkly aback that words wouldn't come to me. Then, wanting to tell her my feelings, I spoke her name. "Lia...Lia? Lia? Lia!" I screamed, realizing that she was no longer responding. "Jada! She-Lia!"

"Ben-" Jada began and approached to comfort me, but I flung her away.

"No! Lia! Goddamnit, no!" 

I shook her body in my powerful hands, wanting her to say something. Frantically, in a haphazard state of mind, I rolled up my sleeve and sliced the interior of my arm open, resulting in a gushing flow of blood. I pressed the wound to her bullet hole, believing stupidly in my panic that there might be a slight chance for her to be saved by my blood. But, after several still minutes when nothing was happening, I finally pulled my sticky arm away, and gaped at Lia's pale body.

"She's gone, Ben," Jada whispered, now holding Taji in her arms. 

"No..." I moaned, and bringing Lia's body closer to me, I embraced her tightly. And bending my head to her body, I choked back tears until I could be strong no longer and began to sob.


	22. Red Fingernails

I remember the beginning and the end of that night. The middle is hazy with blood and tears that cease to make sense. In truth, I'm afraid to remember. Afraid of what I did to not only the people around me, but myself as well.

After abandoning George's hideout, I fled into the streets, letting the pounding rain wash away all of the people's blood which soaked my clothing. Under yellow lights producing a dozen shadows, I trudged along, hands shoved deeply into my pockets. In the back of my mind, a rumbling of thunder began to build, and I knew there were very few places I could hide where my own insanity would not kill me. 

Then, come to me, I mentally whispered. Come and destroy me if you must.

Bums, stretching out their blackened hand, pleaded with me for whatever change that I could spare. After all, I was the one living the life of luxury-wasn't I? I certainly wasn't sitting on a rainy street corner in the middle of the night. For one of the few times, I merely brushed them off, ignoring their insults and requests, instead of chastising at them. My brain was numb with pain, and I didn't want to think or speak. 

I didn't want to be.

My feet slapped through puddles forming inside of crevices in the sidewalk, and rainwater dribbled off of the end of my nose that I would wipe at ever occasionally. Throughout my body, a damp chill had overtaken me, and I began to shiver, rubbing my hands over my arms to warm myself. It was one of the few times in my life I had been so utterly miserable.

"You look a little bit cold," a sultry female voice said.

Glancing off to my right, I saw a lady, who appeared older than me, slumped inside of a doorway. She grinned around the end of her burning cigarette before flicking it off into the night. Her hair, dry underneath the overhang of her apartment, was a luminous golden color.

I didn't respond, and instead merely stared, too shocked from all of the past events to speak.

"You need a place to stay?" she asked.

She was a hooker, obviously, but at that moment, I didn't care. I honestly couldn't care. Maybe, I thought, maybe she was exactly the kind of distraction I needed from the pains of my life.

"Yeah," I finally said, my voice seeming ghastly loud in the night. "Yeah, I do."

"You wanna stay with me? My place is warm enough."

I blinked to flick off the raindrops on my eyelashes and sighed as I approached her. No longer was I powerful and mighty. I was lost and alone in a world that had killed me.

As I came closer, she smiled, pleasantly surprised with whatever I appeared to be to her. "My, my, my, you are a pretty one-aren't cha?"

"Good genetics," I mumbled, while she opened her door for me to enter. 

A gentle cape of warm air spread over me as I entered the house. It wasn't a nice place by any standards, but it was better than my rickety apartment back with Lia and Jada. No. No more Lia there. 

Lia's dead. 

There was a bed in the far corner with an accompanying dresser to match. The table across the room from the bed was still littered with what must have been dinner dishes, and I heard the rumbling of a furnace. A trail of goosebumps traveled up my spine, and I hoped that it was merely the chill instead of my fears coming to capture me.

The lady closed the door behind us and gently began to unbutton the top of my jacket, which was so soaked in rain, the bloodstains blended right in. "What's your name, sweetie?" she asked, glancing up at me for a moment as her fingers flew over the buttons and zipper of my jacket.

I didn't answer her at first because I knew that I couldn't tell her my real name. No one could ever know I was Ben, because Ben brought death wherever he went, and I would not allow that to happen again. 

"You do have a name-don't you?" 

"Mark," I numbly answered. "My name's Mark."

She smiled warmly and slid her long red fingernails through my hair, curling it around the back of my ears. "I'm Samantha, but you can call me Sam." I nodded in acknowledgement as she moved into the kitchen portion of the room and began to heat something on the stove. "You want something to eat? Drink?"

In my soaked shirt and jeans, I just stood there, glassy eyed and trembling. Lia was dead. I had inadvertently killed her. If I hadn't gone after George, she wouldn't have followed along. If I hadn't even come into her life, she never would have died like she did.

Sam came back to me, examining me through sympathetic eyes. I must have looked totally despicable, but she seemed not to notice nor care. After all, I was just another form of cash for her. Nothing more.

Gently, she led me by the hand to the bed, where she instructed me to sit. Barely able to comprehend things on my own, I did as I was told, slouching forward as she bent down and began to unlace my grimy boots. I hoped she wouldn't see any of George's flesh between the rubber soles.

"Anything I can get you?" she asked me, setting my boots and socks over to the side once they were removed.

"No..." I replied. 

"Escape? Look's like you need that."

"Yeah, I guess I do."

A smile formed on her thick lips as she nodded in understanding. Slowly, she eased herself onto the bed beside me, tucking her legs up beneath her, and trailed her fingers around the bottom of my shirt as she gazed into my eyes charmingly. "You've got really pretty blue eyes, you know..." she commented.

"Mm-hmm."

Lia was dead. She was never coming back. What had I done?

Sam peeled my shirt off over my head and ran her fingers over my chest, admiring my muscles with the same fascination I had displayed just a few hours ago. Her touch wasn't soft like Jada's or innocent like Lia's, but it was pleasurable enough that I didn't turn away. The cut on my arm was rapidly healing, and even then, Sam didn't notice. "You must work out a lot. Haven't seen a six pack like this in a long time," she murmured, sliding her hands down the ripples of my body until she reached my belt. I stared impassively at her, wanting to burst out in tears or merely commit suicide that Lia's death was my own doing.

With keen expertise, Sam undid my belt and the rest of my pants until they laid in a heap on the floor, and I was sitting naked on her bed, watching her perform a striptease that seemed to block out all of my pain. She was a hooker. She had slept with more men than I could rationally count. She probably contained every imaginable sexual disease, but I didn't care. 

I no longer cared about anything.

Somehow, we both ended up naked, and I was leaning over her. By that point in my lustful rendezvous, I was absolutely delirious and hardly conscious of what I was doing anymore. Frantically, I kissed her neck, sucking on the soft skin and nibbling on her earlobes. Underneath me, she wrapped her legs around my back, pulling me closer to her, and sighed in satisfaction. I was just another dumb male who needed a female to screw. 

Business as usual.

As she drew me closer, I felt the heat radiating from between her legs and I went mad with desire. No longer able to contain myself, I took her with genetic powered ferocity. She gasped, unprepared for me, and slowly, I began to thrust. Her nails raked my back, sending shivers of pain that only excited me even more. Over and over we moved together until it became only one desperate attempt at releasing the pain. Groaning, I pumped her body until she could no longer simply gasp. She began to swear. Then she began to scream, but I didn't really care as to what she wanted. I would get what I wanted. 

Between my own climax and the rapidly approaching mental storm, I drove into her like I had driven the knife into George's body, resulting in such a rush of feeling that I began to relive those last moments.

Wrapping my hands around Sam's neck, I rocked back and forth, bellowing at her because, in my disillusioned eyes, she was George and I was once again killing him. 

"You bastard," I hissed, tightening my grip. "You bastard..."

She gave a strangled choke that sounded like "Mark", but I didn't care to hear her. After several blind moments, I stopped my thrusting when I realized that she was no longer responding. Pulling out of her as sexual fluid and blood spilled onto the bed sheets, I whispered her name. Gently, I poked her shoulder. "Sam?...Sam?" Then, when the full realization slapped me in the face, I could only gape at her in horror. 

I had murdered her.

Choking back a scream, I stumbled back into my clothing, heavy with rain and my weapons, all while close to vomiting. You fool, I growled to myself, you are the cause of death. And you thought an alias could protect you. Trembling, I disappeared out onto the streets.

Somewhere during the black hours, I meandered my way into a sleazy bar squished between a souvenir store and bagel shop. After shoving a fistful of money at the bartender, I began to drink. If a whore couldn't block out my agony, then alcohol most certainly would. Put me right into a coma, and at last my pain would be removed. 

I drank with a great gusto as a dehydrated man ready to die, gulping down the shots of strong alcoholic drinks without names that were handed to me in little glasses. Even when the room started to spin around me, and the pounding sound of blood in my head was the only thing I could truly recognize, I didn't stop. Faces and music smeared together around me, but I ignored it all in my stupor. The lights were so bright that I had to close my eyes just to ward off that pain, and I nearly stopped drinking because the music was hurting my ears. While reaching for another drink, my hand accidentally missed, and the glass ended up toppling over onto the bar. The liquid, glistening under the light, snaked down the countertop, yet I merely reached for another shot. 

Suddenly, a strong hand came down over my wrist, preventing me from grasping my glass, and I looked upward to see the person clutching my arm. At first the face of the person swirled in my vision, and then I heard their voice.

"Stop it, right now."

The voice was female and spoken with a slight accent that I was unable to pinpoint in my drunkenness. "Let me go," I slurred and tried to pry her fingers away.

"Listen to me, Ben."

The utterance of my name sobered me up enough to peer through my alcohol inflicted fog at her. Bright blue hair was the first thing I noticed, and horrified, I wrenched my arm out of her grasp.

"Get the hell away from me," I warned, lurching unsteadily back. Accidentally, I bumped into a table, resulting in some harsh words from the men sitting there as their glasses clattered to the floor and smashed into hundreds of pieces. 

Blue Girl reached out her hand towards me in an almost pleading fashion. "Ben..."

"Get away from me!" I bellowed, terrified of her and the secrets behind that damned blue hair.

"Look, I just want-"

"No!" I cried, throwing my hands over my ears. "No! No! No!" And with that, I scrabbled away from her and into the night.

Like a lunatic, I ran down the streets, resulting in terrified gasps from bums and hookers who wondered why such a finely dressed man was swearing about the "Blue Lady". I fell once or twice, resulting in a bloody lip and twisted ankle. Somehow, I found myself in a blind alley, slumped over a garbage pail where rotted carcasses of kittens and puppies were eaten by fat New York City rats. If I looked close enough, I knew that there was probably a human child amidst the scoria. 

A caustic whip lashed throughout me, causing me to tightly grab onto the sides of the receptacle, understanding what was coming. Vomiting, my body spasmodically arched as my last meal erupted from my stomach, splattering the sides of the garbage can. The acid burned my throat, but even after my stomach was empty, the muscles still kept contracting, wanting to rid my body of every ounce of energy I had. 

After the dry heaves ended, I collapsed onto the dirty ground, shaking and moaning like a drug addict in withdrawal. Covering my head up with my hands, I allowed the storm to emerge in its full rapture, pummeling my mind with thunder and darkness. It tore through my brain, destroying all emotion until I was just a shivering mass of fleshy tears. Since all of my resolves were annihilated anyhow, I allowed myself to finally acknowledge the words I had never told her, knowing that she could hear me from wherever she danced now. 

Between the tears and thunder, and before I slipped into exhausted blackness, my lips managed to whisper, "Lia...I love you..."


	23. Flowing Material

"Beautiful-isn't it?"

            "Perfectly stunning," I replied in a near whisper.

            I was standing in front of Michelangelo's _Pietà_, a glorious work of art if there ever was one. The statue, a massive display of Jesus Christ in His mother's lap after His Crucifixion, was previously located in Rome before the pulse. Yet, after the United States had been destroyed, resulting in the upheaval of countries depending upon America for financial security, con artists and thieves had scurried to Italy by the masses. Famous artwork, which had been protected since its birth back in the times of Christopher Columbus, was soon stripped off walls, and marble statues were ransacked and thrown into trucks. The priests, who had diligently protected the arts for all of their lives, were shot dead in the road as bandits drove away. The Vatican City, a powerful center of the Roman Catholic faith, was stripped of all of its valuables and left for dead. 

            The man standing beside me in the present time extended his hand, which I accepted ruefully. "William Jameson," he told me. 

            "Daniel Carver," I responded, only taking my eyes off of the statue for a split second just so I could align my hand with his. 

            In the time since I cracked in the alley after Lia's death, I gathered a sufficient amount of sanity to head for Upper Manhattan. I could never summon quite enough courage to return to the apartment, though, where I knew Jada and Taji would be, now alone in a world without any family besides each other. So, after stealing some classy clothes and cash, I rented out a rather ritzy hotel room and was starting my new victim prospecting.

            "Do you collect much artwork?" William asked me, clasping his hands behind his back. We were standing in his private collection of religious relics, which he was displaying for a limited time in honor of the opening of his new museum.

            "Not at this point," I told him, adjusting my sunglasses on my face. I wore them at all times, feeling protected behind the dark lenses. When asked about my eyewear, I dismissed it as weak eyes that didn't like the lighting.  "I've been living in Italy for many years, and as you know, the supply of art is limited over there."

            He smiled faintly at my black humor. "Yes, only thieves and scam artists can manage to collect anything of valuable over there."

            "I'm imagining that's how you came upon this fabulous piece of work, then."

            "Actually, it was given to me as a gift."

            "A gift?" I echoed, arching an eyebrow. My new persona of Daniel Carver was suave and cool with hardly any emotion whatsoever. He didn't know anger or pain, sadness or happiness. He was simply a filthy rich bastard looking for blood. "From whom?"

            "My wife."

            "Quite a fitting present. May I ask why she didn't keep it for herself? The _Piet_à is something that I surely wouldn't want to give away."

            William laughed under his breath, moving closer to the statue as if attempting to protect it. "Simply put, it was a last minute plea to our divorce decree."

            "I see."

            "She wanted me to stay. I wanted to go. She gave me this, and I left with it anyway."

            "And your wife? What happened to her?"

            He shrugged beneath a finely tailored camel colored suit, which made his mane of blond hair appear even brighter. "I'd prefer not to go into extremities, Mr. Carver."

            "Please," I insisted with a forced smile, "call me Daniel."

            "Very well, then, Daniel."

            There was a pause in the conversation as a finely dressed couple moved past in a whisper of rushing satin. I stared at the sculpture in front of us, studying the humanness displayed in it. Mary, better known to me as the Blue Lady, clutched Her fallen Son in Her lap. The flowing material of Her dress crumpled beneath the anguished body of Christ, and their hair curled over glossy skin. Her beautiful face was saddened, and it wouldn't have surprised me if She had started crying right then and there.

            "Now, Daniel," William said to me, moving closer so that we would not be overheard by other guests, "you seem to show quite a devout interest in my collection of heavenly works."

            "That I do."

            He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out an envelope, which he casually slipped to me. "I'm hosting a party this Saturday evening. You're more than welcome to attend, and perhaps you and I can discuss further details of these glorious artifacts."

            "I would like that very much," I acknowledged, inserting the card inside of my own black pocket. 

            "Good, good," he replied, patting me on the shoulder. "I'll be looking forward to seeing you again."

            As he exited with nods and smiles to his other guests, I was left gazing upward at the mournful Blue Lady. All around me, Her face was displayed in the greatest glory ever known to man, whether it was in pastels or charcoal, marble or clay, and it was then that I felt the tiniest trace of happiness uncurl from inside of me. I had found my next servant for Her.


	24. Breathtaking Eyes

After meandering back to the hotel through a light sprinkling of rain, I proceeded to lock my door, shove a chair in front of it, and then flop down on my bed in pure exhaustion. Although I would have liked to deny my fatigue, I knew that I could not function properly without sleep. I had only caught a couple hours' worth of rest in the alley after Lia's death and a few hours in the hotel. But, I could never fully settle down, and I was constantly on the lookout for Zack, the Blue Girl, or even Lydecker to burst through my door and drag me away. Nevertheless, languor got the better of me, and I pulled off my unneeded glasses and set them on the nightstand next to my bed. Grabbing one of the pillows and tucking it up underneath my arm, I curled into the fetal position and drifted away back into my Manticore world so many years ago.

            "Tell me a story, Ben."

            "About what?" I asked as I rolled over on my stomach so we were side by side, shaven head by shaven head, brother by sister. 

            "About the Good Place."

            "Max," I gently teased, "you've heard that story a hundred times."

            "I want to hear it again. I want to know what it'll be like if I ever make it there."

            "Well, it's only for the good soldiers-"

            "Am I a good soldier?"

            "Yes, you are."

            "Are you?" she asked, glancing over at me through those captivating eyes of hers.

            "Yes, I'm a good soldier." As if we both somehow knew the future evils I would commit, neither of us said anything for a moment until I continued, "In the Good Place you never get yelled at because the people always love you."

            "Not like Lydecker."

            "No. Lydecker doesn't love us. She loves us, but he doesn't."

            "She?"

            "The Blue Lady."

            Max smiled, pleased with the thought of someone looking out for us in our childhood hell. "I wish I could meet Her."

            "If we go to the Good Place, She'll be there for us."

            "Really, Ben?"

            "Really…And in the Good Place, no one ever gets punished…No one ever disappears."

            "Like Jack and Eva," she whispered.

            "Like Jack and Eva," I acknowledged solemnly. "But, maybe they made it to the Good Place…maybe the Blue Lady took them there."

            "How did they get there?" 

            I paused, considering my answer carefully. "They flew…like angels…"

            "Flew?" she echoed incredulously.

            "Yeah," I replied as I shifted upward so that I was kneeling beside her. "Like this." And, making my hands into a bird formation with my thumbs interlocking, I caused a shadow to fly against the wall. "See, it's flying away from everything." The dark shadow floated over the trio of words that would follow me around for the rest of my life. My bird crested the "m" of "mission" before swooning onward. For a split second, I saw the raven that had been with us the day one of my siblings was murdered. I saw that dark bird bringing death, and I wanted it to fly away. Fly high away. Fly into the sunlight.

            "And in the Good Place, you can stay in bed as long as you want…" Max was saying, but I wasn't listening. I was flying. Like that shadow bird, I was drifting upward into the sunlight where a woman dressed in glittering light came towards me. Expecting my Lady, I cried out with joy as my childhood soul hardened into my adult's. But, when I reached the lady, she was not dressed in blue robes of sapphire or adorned with a crown above her head. Instead, she wore a silken robe like an angel's and smiled at me through rosy lips.

            "Ben…"

            I stopped in my tracks, where the light was so bright even the shadows on my soul could not thrive. Raising my hand to shield my eyes, I winced at the light I was not accustomed to. 

            "You're not the Lady," I told the woman in front of me.

            Laughing in spite of herself, she shook her head, which caused lush golden ringlets to tumble down around her face. "I should have known that you would not have recognized me like this."

            "Who are you?" I whispered, feeling a sense of foreboding inside of me.

            In a flash of dazzling light, the woman stood in front of me as a child wearing a powder blue nightgown. Her head was shaved and blue eyes held their position defiantly. "Now do you recognize me, little brother?"

            It took a minute, before I could actually bring myself to choke out, "Eva?"

            "Exactly," she smiled, and again, she reversed back into her adult figure so that our eyes met evenly. We stood for a moment, examining each other in the forms we had not seen before. She was slightly shorter than I was with metallic blue eyes and glistening blonde hair, while wearing a cream colored robe, suited for the angels. I, meanwhile, was wearing my typical pair of black jeans and inky coat; my hair was spiked as it often was, and I knew my eyes were a duller blue than hers were. At last, Eva explained, "She let me grow up here, Ben."

            "She?" I echoed in disbelief, wondering in the back of my mind where exactly "She" was.

            "Yes…your Lady…We're all here Ben. Every one of us that didn't make it down there." Gently, Eva grabbed me by the hand, leading me through her world of the Good Place. "I've watched all of you for so long."

            "All of our unit?"

            "That escaped that night?" she added. "Yes. You, Max, Brin, Jondy, Tinga, Zack, Zane, Krit, and Syl…I know all about you."

            We continued walking together through the light and mist that swirled around us, until I asked, "Is this the Good Place?"

            "Not exactly…" Eva wavered. Then stopping, she pointed a finger off into a direction where the light was so golden and so blazing, I couldn't even force myself to look. "That," she said, "is where the Good Place is."

            "Have you been there?"

            "Yes."

            "Are the others there now?"

            "Yes."

            "Did you leave to greet me?"

            "Yes."

            "Am I dreaming all of this?"

            There was a pause. "Sort of, yes, Ben. You see, your faith in the Lady is so great that you want more than anything to have material proof in your hands that She does believe in you."

            "Yes," I agreed, feeling my heart flutter inside of my chest.

            "Now, I could tell you the truth and pop your beautiful bubble you have built for yourself with truths you are not ready to hear, but I won't. I'll tell you enough to satisfy your cravings for immortal answers. You are seeing the Good Place as you want to see it…not how it truly exists, because you haven't seen it for yourself."

            "And what about you? I've never imagined you to be like this."

            "I can look however you want me to look as an adult, Ben, even if you don't recognize me at first. You've spent enough time in churches, so I look no different than one of your plaster angels."

            "But, I'm not making your words up?"

            "No."

            "Then how is this possible? Me, talking to you?"

            "Sometimes, the greatest things are not born from possibilities. They are created instead by impossibilities of the heart."

            Again, another pause follow during which she grabbed me by my rugged hand, swinging ours back and forth playfully. She was still the jovial Eva I remembered before Lydecker destroyed her wonderful life. After a long moment of wandering together, I stopped so abruptly in my tracks that she was left standing in front of me, our arms balancing in the air. Slowly, I released my hand from hers, recoiling instinctively like I had touched vulgarity, while she moved closer, question in her breathtaking eyes. 

            "Ben?" she asked.

            "Eva?" I finally whispered as tears invaded my voice. "There's…There's something I have to ask you."

            "Anything."

            "I-Is…Jack here?"

            "In the Good Place?"

            "No…here…with us. I-I want to see him again. Like how I see you. Not dead or mutilated because of Manticore, but happy and beautiful."

            She smiled almost in a sad fashion. "You can, I suppose, if you want to. But, Ben, you can't cling to us for guidance and protection forever…he told you that-didn't he?"

            "Please, Eva…I miss him," I nearly cried, not liking to admit how weak I was-even to my sister.

            "Very well then," she said, and then with a nod of her head, she vanished, leaving me all alone in the mist and sun.

From behind, there came a voice, calling my name. Turning, I peered through the light, wanting desperately to see my brother alive and jubilant once again. "Jack!" I cried into the fog dancing around me. "Jack! Is that you?"

I ran towards the voice, calling over and over for Jack, and just as I caught of glimpse of a man my age running towards me, I found myself in my hotel room, panting heavily and a cold sweat over my shoulders. As I rolled upward, I patted myself over, making sure that I was still alive and not in the Bad Place by will of the Blue Lady. Trembling, I rose to my feet and padded across the carpeting, gazing down at Manhattan, twinkling in bright lights where rain slapped against the window. Then, as I lifted my eyes to the stars, I heard Eva's voice whispering to me once again, "Sometimes, the greatest things are not born from possibilities. They are created instead by impossibilities of the heart."

And, as one of the stars went flying across the sky, I smiled faintly and whispered, "Thanks, sister."


	25. Satan's Wings

Saturday night, and I was, as drunken teenagers put it on their prom nights, "dressed to kill". Since it was a costume party, I wasn't dressed as some handsome model from the twenty-first century, but as a god from the past. I wore an old fashioned tuxedo with a white high collared shirt and for the finishing touch, a black cape billowed behind me like Satan's wings. As I climbed the stairs to William's establishment, I slipped on a black mask that covered my eyes and nose and handed my invitation to the man at the door, who gestured me inside. The noise and heat hit me at once with a gratifying rush, and my eyes instinctively scanned the room for any traces of blue hair or brown leather. Seeing no signs of danger, I smiled pleasantly to myself, and I continued pushing my way past the people.

            Over at the bar, I ordered a scotch to keep me occupied and then headed upwards. On the main floor, the people gathered with their drinks and dancing, but, if one took a set of stairs, that person would find himself on a thin catwalk winding above the entire dance floor. Like extremities from the body of the catwalk, there were several rooms, which appeared to be composed of bedrooms, offices, and the like. 

            I stood on the interior platform and looked down at the wriggling mass of people, searching for William. Gingerly, I sipped at my drink, knowing that no matter what happened, I would not let William leave. 

Interrupting my plotting, a light hand touched my arm and a female voice said, "I haven't seen you around here before."

            Turning, I found myself face to face with a lady dressed in a white Victorian ballgown. The woman was disgustingly thin, for her collarbone poked through the skin exposed above the dress' low-cut collar. Her thickly beaded skirt did not permit me to see how thin her legs must have been, but the short sleeves clearly displayed gaunt and bony arms. Behind the full-face white mask, her golden brown hair was tied up in beads and white feathers.

            "I was invited at the last minute," I curtly explained.

            "One of William's personal invites, then?" she asked. "And not just one of the 'regulars'?"

            "Yes. Personal invitation from William."

            "I see," she responded, focusing her attention back on the bustling people where a finely jeweled peacock twirled with Julius Caesar. "Do you live in Manhattan?"

            "No. Here on business."

            "Business with William?"

            "Yes." I paused to take another sip of my drink. "And how about you? What are you here for?"

  
            "Entertainment."

            "Entertainment?"

            "There's a couple of us floating around here. If the party gets dull, we're supposed to go in and 'liven things up a bit'." She chuckled and ran a finger over her jaw. "But, it looks like I may not have to work too hard tonight, after all." A brief pause followed before she asked, "What's your name?"

            "Daniel."

            "You don't seem like a Daniel, but then, I'm sure you didn't choose your name-your parents did...or whoever raised you…'cause if we could choose our names, then it wouldn't be so bad…" she chuckled softly.

  
            "What's yours?"

            "Diane…Here, would you like to go outside on the balcony? I'm starting to become warm up here."

            "Lead the way." I followed her through a fancily decorated bedroom to an outside balcony overlooking a luscious area of trees and glistening water fountains. Diane sat down on a cement bench and removed her mask, revealing her emaciated face. Although she could have been beautiful, she was very sickly looking with sunken eyes and ashen skin. I could tell from what limited conversation we had already exchanged that her level of intelligence was not that high either. She prodded for answers I would have preferred ignored, for little girls with many questions become dead women without any tongues.

            "You may sit next to me, if you'd like," she said, looking up at me.

            Smoothing my cape down beneath me before sitting, I glanced over to see her watching me curiously. 

            "You're certainly not from around here-are you?"

            "Why do you say that?"

            She narrowed her eyes together, confused it seemed. "You float. Other people walk, but you float as if you're afraid you'll be spotted. You move like a cat almost."

            "So I've been told."

            We lapsed into a natural silence, and I gazed down at the bustling street where a glittering water fountain dribbled onto roses' thorns. Diane's eyes had taken on a glassy look of their own as she stared off into the bedroom through which we had entered. Observing her more closely, I noticed bruises on her forearms and the way her skin puckered around her vertebrae. Her death was knocking at the back door, but she hadn't the strength to answer it.

            "So, which one are you?" I questioned, breaking the silence.

            "Excuse me?" she chirped, taken aback. She tried to blink her feathery eyes, hoping to distract me.

            "You know, anorexic, bulimic...some another form of food related illness that doesn't have a name yet. Which one are you?"

            Immediately, a harsh red color flew to her cheeks, and she moved her hand back to slap me across the face. Just as her hard palm was centimeters away from my cheek, my own hand shot up and wrapped itself around her wrist. As I squeezed, feeling the brittle bones pop over one another, she gasped from the immense pain I was causing.

            "Don't ever try to hit me," I stated in a dull monotone. "Or else I'll make sure it's the last time you ever touch flesh again."

            Releasing her, I rose to my feet so I could locate William and leave the party while Diane brushed away her tears. "Who are you?" she whispered.

            "What is that supposed to mean?"

            "You don't want sex, money, or any of the other things men want. There's so much about you that doesn't make you like others. I don't care what you do to me, but where do you _come_ from?"

            I turned and crouched down next to her, meeting her eyes evenly. "Diane, I come from the only place people like me can come from." Bringing my index and middle finger to her cheek, I gently brushed away a strand of weak hair. "I, my sweet, come from the devil's playground." And, with a wave of my long black cape, I left her to silently weep on the balcony alone.


	26. Wonderful Drink

Several minutes later, I found William amidst a flock of gorgeous women. As I approached, he looked up from his giggling with the three ladies. "Daniel," he smiled, extending his hand, which I grasped firmly in my own. "Good. Good. Glad to see you here." Then turning to his female companions, "Ladies, if you'll excuse me." Still twittering amongst themselves, the girls turned and headed downstairs to the dancing and drugs. "You want to talk now?"

            "Yes, I would," I answered.

            "All right, let's head to my office, shall we?" Moving together, he babbled aimlessly to himself, and I could see that he was either totally drunk or very close to it. Perfect. "Vodka. Wonderful drink. Nothing quite clears the mind like it-eh, Daniel?"

            "Indeed."

            Entering his office, I closed the door behind us as William, dressed like an eighteenth century pirate, sat down in his black leather chair behind a dark wood desk. Around the top of the room, animals' heads were displayed in glorious fashion. William saw me observing them, and he smiled proudly. "Every single one of those I killed. My precious is that Siberian Tiger...absolute man-eater...and I was the one who brought him down." Silently, I gave a mental chuckle, knowing that William would never realize just how much of a kitten his tiger was compared to the beast sitting across from him.

            "You've met Diane?" William rattled. "I saw you talking to her on the balcony. Great in the sack. Little airy in the brain, but she never fails to satisfy." 

            Yes, he was definitely drunk. 

            "Personally," I responded, "I find it very difficult to become sexually aroused over a skeleton pretending to be fully human."

            William, who was in mid-sip when I spoke, choked on his drink. "Excuse me?" he sputtered.

            I just grinned wryly and waved my hand to dismiss his question. "It was nothing."

            "Ah, well, then," he nodded, accepting my trivial answer. "You want to talk about the _Pietà__?_ Depending on what you're willing to offer, we could come to a bargain. I usually wouldn't want to part with such a gift," he continued, shuffling through marked papers, "but, you seem to have the money that would change my tone."

            "I don't want the _Pietà_."

            "No? Daniel, you don't seem to realize what you're giving up. I can cut the cost for you. Friends do things like that for each other. And if it's not the _Pietà_you're after, maybe I can interest you in one of the paintings..."

            Reaching across the desk, I put my hand over his and met his eyes through my mask. "I don't _want_ anything _you_ can offer, William," I whispered forcefully.

            "I don't understand..." Suave, debonair William was gone in a flurry of vodka and fake swords. This man before me was walking into the lions' den without a god even in Hell to save him.

            "Do you want Her?" I asked.

            "Who? Diane?"

            "No, you jackass," I snapped, and, whipping backwards, I snatched a porcelain figurine of the Blue Lady from behind me and shoved it into his face. "Her."

            "Mary?"

            "The Blue Lady."

            "But, I already have so many paintings and sculptures and..."

            "Do you want to touch Her?"

            "Daniel, I don't understand..." There were beads of sweat forming above his lip, and his thick golden hair clung to his temples like maggots to their carcass. I would not let him leave me as I had let so many slip away before me. I didn't care what it took; the risks didn't matter.

He would be mine. 

He would be Hers.

            "How much do you love Her?" I asked, moving around to crouch beside of him, where we both stared at the simplistic icon I held in my left hand. Eyes gazing downward sweetly, while Her fair hands gently touched the burning heart inside of Her, She was the very being I adored. "Do you even love Her?"

            "Y-yes, I do. I always have. She reminds me of my mother...before she died and left me all that she had."

            "Do you love your mother?"

            "She's dead, Daniel."

            "Do you love your mother?" I repeated, knowing that under my manipulation and his alcohol, I would have him soon enough.

            "Yes, I suppose so, but I don't understand-"

            "Now, tell me William, who means more to you? Your mother? Or Her?"

            "But, is She truly real? My mother was..."

            "You doubt?"

            "No, but I have seen my mother. I touched her clothing and smelled her perfume...Mary-"

            "The Blue Lady."

            "-I have not."

            "If you could, would you serve Her? Would you love Her like you loved your mother? Tell me William, would you?"

            His bloodshot eyes danced to mine, and he licked his dry lips. Any more of his precious drink and he'd be falling out of his chair. 

            "I suppose so, yet that's not possible, Daniel-"

            "What if it were?"

  
            "What?"

  
            "What if I could bring Her to you? All She needs is faith, William, and She will be real." Then, in a flurry of emotion and frustration, I grabbed him by the collar. "Answer me! Would you serve Her?!" 

            It took only a brief moment of hesitation before he nodded stiffly. "Yes, yes, I would serve Her if I knew that She could be real."

            I smiled and rose to my feet, pleased with my work. "Who is your master now, William?"

            "She is."

            "And She is?"

            "Mary..."

            Lifting my mask, I bent down and put my face close enough to his for our noses to be touching had I moved only a millimeter closer. His rank breath spewed over my face, and I smelled perspiration and fear on his flesh. "The Blue Lady is your goddess now, William. And, I am your master." 

            In shock, his eyes began to widen upon realizing that he had sold his soul to a madman, but with a swift blow to the backside of his head, he tumbled out of his chair, unconscious. As he fell to the ground, I straightened myself and lifted the figurine to eye level. "His blood will be for You. I swear it, my Lady, You will be strong once again. And so shall I."


	27. Slower Suicide

Hurriedly, I started to pull a sheet off one of the many luxurious beds so that I could climb down the outside balcony with William, and I had just removed one of the corners of the bedding, when a voice interrupted my plotting: "I see you're still here."

            Turning rapidly enough to cause my cape to billow out around me, I faced Diane who stood in the doorway with bloodshot eyes and grimy tear streaks down her face. Her makeup was smeared down gaunt cheeks and hair in shambles. "I figured you would have left by now," she explained, moving closer to me. "What, with all your 'devil's playground', the police are probably searching for you. Drug dealer? Ritzy burglar? Or are you something worse?"

            I didn't answer her, but remained silent, shocked by her sudden valor. She merely moved closer to me, continuing to babble. "You and William hooking up in some big scandal? I won't tell because it doesn't really matter to me. All I need is my payment and that's it."

            "Payment?" I echoed, still clutching part of the cream bed sheet in my hands.

            "For whatever 'services' I give."

            "You're a prostitute then."

            "I'd prefer to be called a 'female escort'…but I'm also a model." She paused and tried peering through my black mask to dissect me for emotions. "About what you asked earlier…about my appearance…"

            "Forget it," I said, not wanting to go into her pathetic lifestyle when I had an unconscious William to take care of. She was a distraction sent by the monsters in the basement to turn me away from my Lady. And, with my Lady's impatience building, I couldn't delay another sacrifice for long.

            "No. I won't forget it," Diane stated. "You're the first person who's ever outright asked. The doctors tell me that I'm sick…'anorexia nervosa'…that's the technical name for it. But, a person can only go through so many hospitals before you give up hope. Ever been in a psychiatric hospital? Not as a patient because you look far too sane for that, but just visited?"

            I pulled my cape tighter to me as I remembered marching down the hallways of Manticore's basement. How the anomalies had reached for us, wanting to rip our flesh from our childish muscles and drink our blood. I shut my eyes tightly as the past laser burned through my pupil and "duty" flashed across a projector screen. 

            "Daniel?" Diane was saying, reaching for me, and rapidly, I opened my eyes, pulling away from her. 

            "You're dying."

            There was a long pause as music from the basement fluttered up to meet our ears. Unsteadily, her eyes flickered away, before they returned, tear-filled, to meet mine again. 

            "I know," she at last whispered, all of her past courage obliterated with one truth.

            "Then stop it. Do _something_…It's no different than taking a knife to your wrists."

            "No, it is different."

            "How? Yours is just a slower suicide, but it's suicide all the same." I couldn't understand her. It didn't make sense that a person could be weak enough to merely stand back and let oneself die like she was doing. To willingly starve herself until she was nothing anymore but a shrunken form of what she used to be.

            "I'm just psychotically fucked up," she acknowledged, and the expletive usage caught my attention immediately. Her voice caught in the back of her throat and she bent her head, trying not to cry. "You don't understand…"

            "No, I don't."

            "It's not like I want to die, but I don't want to live…I just want to be beautiful…and I was told that if I lost weight, I would be beautiful…" She looked up and her glassy eyes met mine. "Daniel…tell me, am I beautiful?"

            I couldn't answer her. My throat had clenched up, and I tried swallowing to relax it. I wanted her to leave because I needed to retrieve William for the Blue Lady, yet, Diane's mental disturbances brought back memories of Zack accusing me of the same thing. "You're no different than the 'nomlies in the basement," he had told me. "You're just as screwed up as they are."

            "Will you take off your mask?" she asked me.

            "No."

            "Why not? I just want to see you before you leave."

            "Diane…I can't…I won't…"

            She moved closer to me and reached up to touch my face. I didn't move, but held my position defiantly. Gently, her bony fingers touched my cheeks before trailing down the side of my face where they skimmed across the bottom of my mask. Then, silently, she slipped the mask over my head and I was fully exposed.

            Her eyes widened at the sight of me, whether because she could at last see the darkness in me or for another unexplainable reason. Recoiling, with her hand covered her mouth, I saw the sadness fade into shock.

            Dropping the sheet, I held out my hands to her, trying not to scream. "Is _this_ what you wanted to see?" I hissed. "Is it?"

            Mutely, she shook her head.

            I pinched my lips tightly together, then whispered, "Whatever you think I am, I'm not. I want you to leave-"

            "You're beautiful, Daniel."

  
            "Excuse me?"

            "_You're_ beautiful."

            For a moment, neither of us said anything until a single tear trickled down her cheek and her lips twitched awkwardly, trying to form a smile. Then, before disappeared back into the party, she whispered, "Good-bye, Daniel."


	28. Wide Scared Eyes

William's capture from his illustrious home went relatively smooth after my confrontation with Diane. Once I scampered out of William's office window onto the roof above, I was free to skirt across building tops with William's bulk slung over my shoulder in the bed sheet. My cape, flying out around me, gave me wings like those of a dark angel. Knowing that I could not take William back to the hotel and guide him in service to the Blue Lady, I entered the bowels of New York City through a sewer tunnel. Beneath the restless city, I made myself fairly comfortable in an abandoned control room, which probably hadn't been used since the middle of the twentieth century. William, on the other hand, was imprisoned in an offshoot of the main sewer tunnel; the room was made of compacted dirt for the floor and grimy cement for the walls, but it was secure and soundproof nonetheless.

By the sixth night that William had been in my capture, he was what real world psychiatrists would have diagnosed as "clinically insane". Even while awake, he would stare into the inky blackness that surrounded him, drooling-and at his worst moments, occasionally urinating and defecating without conscious control. During the saner periods-and usually while I happened to be in the room-he would merely talk to himself as I pretended not to notice. Of course, though, I noticed. Not noticing would have to result in a complete genetic change, as being on full alert for every living moment was as natural to me as breathing. 

            One night in particular, William, after fainting during the period when I tattooed my barcode on the back of his neck, was awake. Tied to an iron pipe in an underground room, his fancy pirate's costume was torn and dirty, matted with rats' feces and entangled in spiders' cobwebs. His cheek, prickled after not shaving for days, rested against the cool metal of the pipe as he faced me with glassy eyes, and a thin stream of drool was forming at the corner of his dried lips.

            I, meanwhile, was seated on a protrusion of the sewer wall with my knees tucked up to my chest and my hands busily cleaning my tattooing equipment. A powerful floodlight sat beside me, giving William the only light he would have until I came again like a devil to collect mortal souls. I had changed out of my fancy costume and was comfortably outfitted in black jeans and a sweatshirt, which helped to fight the chill that both the season and the factor of being underground brought about. William, on the other hand, had a dusky tinge to his skin and goosebumps had spread across his normally tanned skin.

            "You ever been to war before, boy?" William croaked out.

            I said nothing, but barely lifted my eyes in a flicker of mute acknowledgment, partially unsure if he was talking to me or to the hallucinations in his mind.

            "Not pretty. Death…all the time. You know you're going to die. Could die. It's hard…yeah, it's hard." He tried to move, tried to stretch his pitiful muscles, but his attempts were futile. "Operation Iraqi Freedom…heard of it? You probably weren't born yet-were ya? Yeah, I fought in it. Over in Iraq…" He chuckled to himself and the gesture caused his dried lips to split and a trickle of blood to form on his skin. "Yep, yep…September 11th, 2001…big day. _Tuesday, _September 11th. 9-11. Bunch of terrorists blew up these buildings. World Trade Centers. Big. The U.S. was all, 'well, nobody can hurt us, we're the U.S. of A'. Cocky bastard bureaucrats. And then they hurt us. Hurt us something nasty. Flew two jumbo jets smack into the buildings and the entire city of New York went nuts. Can't blame 'em any, though. Two of the biggest buildings known to man suddenly falling to the ground like a deck of cards and thousands of people dying? Yeah, I'd shit myself scared too."

            So, this was William, I thought to myself. Not some suave fearless businessman of self-made millions, but a simple, puny, American. He wasn't any different than the rest of the human scum meandering around above our heads as he spoke. And, a pity, for I thought I was getting somebody special. Somebody who truly deserved a chance to serve Her. 

            "…I was in high school at the time and, George W. was all 'let's get those damn Iraqis!'. George W. Bush. President at the time. He came in after Billy Boy Clinton got done getting his blow jobs from the intern…but I never liked Democrats much anyway…Where was I? Oh, Bush and his 'axis of evil' bullshit. So, I enlisted. I did boot camp. I did all their bullshit they wanted me to because I wanted revenge. I wanted revenge for what those terrorists did…" He paused here and blinked to fight back tears. This emotion produced some increased attention on my part. While William could drool, scream, and even piss himself silly, sorrow was something I hadn't anticipated. Nevertheless, I pretended to be oblivious. 

"My mom was in that tower. Tower Two. And when the jet hit…I saw it hit on the TV. I screamed at the television in my classroom that day. I remember that. I remember how the teacher asked me if I needed to see a counselor. Imagine that. You see a monstrous explosion of flames, a building crumbling like a sandcastle and smoke darkening the sun…and your _mother _is in all of it…and they think a stupid _counselor _could help." He snorted in disgust. "But, I screamed and I cried. I broke the beakers in that class…it was Chemistry…all those glass containers for experiments. Took my arm and flung them against the wall and made all the kids yelp. Only after I ran out of the room and locked myself in the bathroom to sob, did they come for me. But it was too late to help me because she was dead and nothing could bring her back. They…those damn terrorists…they murdered her…and I never even got to say good-bye. You just don't tell your mom you love her when you're eighteen…it's just something 'cool' teenagers don't do, so I didn't. But, deep down, I did. I loved her. I never told my mom how much I loved her." There was a lengthy pause here as I ceased cleaning my equipment and the two of us met eyes across the room. There was nothing I could say, or even wanted to say to him because I knew that if I were to speak, I would break his trance. His eyes, large and glistening, in the light, were the distant and disconnected. So, I clasped my hands underneath my chin and waited for him to continue.

"When we first entered Iraq, I remembered how excited I felt. How wonderful it would be to see my mom's death avenged. I wanted to see these men suffer like I had been suffering for the last months. I was only eighteen-right? Old enough to fight, but young enough not to understand why. I thought it was for her, for Mom…so I could see somebody else burn and bleed like she had…see somebody else's life ruined…" He stopped here and sighed heavily. In the distance, a pipe dripped and rats squealed. "But, after you take person after person after miserable, damn, person hostage, and they're no different than you or me, you realize that your revenge is pointless. You look into their wide scared eyes as they cry and plead with you in a language you don't understand. They're scared you're going to shoot them, and they don't want to die. And why should they? They've done absolutely nothing wrong in their pitiful little lives except be born under a man's rule who, may have, possibly, indirectly, caused your mother's death…but, when some of them do fight back and then _you're _the one who's crying and bleeding…well, that's a different story. And, you finally understand. You finally _understand. _Your stupid teenage brain finally realizes that this revenge, this mad, bloodthirsty rampage you've been on, is asinine. You thought that you could bring back somebody you loved merely through more murders? You can kill as many damn people as you want but nothing, absolutely _nothing_, is going to bring back the one you lost. No…no…life, it doesn't work that way." 

He removed his eyes from mine and let his chin rest on his chest. As the silence filled the room and his words danced around me, a horrid flash of truth whipped through me and I heard Jack's words once again:_ "…I came back to tell you that you don't need to keep fighting for me anymore…Let the dead stay dead, Ben. And, you've got to face it: I am dead."_

            Is that what you meant Jack? You want me to stop the sacrifices? You want me to give up belief in Her and turn away from all that I have accomplished as a servant for Her? Is that what you wanted? 

            I finally understood.

            While my brother could come back from the dead and tell me to cease the killings, I wouldn't listen. Not until I had been through life and death, crying over both, did it at last make sense in the fullest terms. I bowed my head and let my forehead rest upon my curled knees. I could free William, let him return to the life that he had once known, and I would go out into the world. I would forget about the Blue Lady. I would forget about the blood on my hands and in my mouth. I would forget it all and become a "normal, real world X5 rogue". 

            But then what? I would live in constant fear that without Her protection, I would die. I needed Her. I needed Her to be there and to reassure me that yes, I was going to make it through another day. Even though I finally knew what Jack was trying to tell me from beyond the grave, I couldn't quit serving Her. Jack would stay dead and nothing that I could do would bring him back. Yet, I still would continue to serve Her.

            For a long while, the room containing William and me was strangely silent. Then, I rose to my feet and approached William who stared up at me through muted eyes. Bending down, I untied him and grabbed him under the arm, helping him to his feet.

            It was the first time the two of us had met on even eyes since I had kidnapped him nearly a week ago. For a moment, he thought he was free, and he could go back to his palaces in the sky. Yet, his beliefs were quickly averted as I handed him a knife, gun and crossbow. "Here," I said, "you've been trained well enough. You understand all that you need to. You run. I seek. And, if you're lucky, Her protection will be enough to allow you to live. Go now. Go and we shall see who rests in Her favor."


	29. Friendly College Kid

William's death came as expected. Although he did devise an excellent defensive strategy-for someone of his menial caliber-slipping in and out infinite tunnels where he had been contained for numerous days, I caught him nonetheless. After the kill, I scuttled up the side of a building and displayed him under the moonlight on a fancy hotel's rooftop where celebrities sipped chardonnay below us. From there, I made my way to a church and offered respectable prayers and gratitude to my Lady. Following this, my mental storm began to augment in fierce intensity and I had to crouch to the ground until my body stopped shaking from the whipping wind. Despite the storm, however, I was pleased with what I had accomplished. 

            Stepping back from my concentration on William, I realized I had been in New York City far too long. Lydecker, Zack or anyone else who was continuously hunting had an opportune chance to find me. Besides, I knew that staying in a city where such painful memories lingered would only further destroy my mentality. So, I searched through all that I had stolen from William and found enough cash to fly on an expensive jet to Denver, Colorado.

            There, among massive mountains and a thin layer of snow, I made myself comfortable in a rustic ski lodge where I could concoct up my next strategy. Under the alias of "Joshua Baker", I dyed my hair blond, wore silver-framed glasses and told those who asked that I was an Ivy League college student on vacation. No one questioned my identity and everyone adored the wonderful person of Joshua.

As the third day in Denver passed, I had not met a single person who came even remotely close to the personality I desired for my Lady. Yet, William's recent sacrifice satisfied enough to keep me sane. After all I had suffered in New York, She couldn't destroy me so swiftly and unexpectedly.

Late one night, I was curled up on the couch in the main downstairs room, allowing myself to drift off in my own thoughts. The fire crackled and flickered against the strong beams in the lodge's wall, creating shadow creatures similar to those I performed for my siblings back in Manticore. Briefly, not restraining my mental wanderings, I wondered if Max still remembered the birds I had created for her; the birds that had soared to a world better than we had known. 

 In a separate bar area, couples danced and women laughed in drunken tongues. Normally, I would have made an acrid comment under my breath about how only alcohol could bring such a blissful state, but I could not bring myself to insult them. Their dancing reminded me of a child who had touched me in such a way that even remembering her name hurt. I had just pulled myself out of the depressing memory when someone sat down on the couch next to me.

I glanced over to see a tanned woman, dressed comfortably in jeans and a red sweater, who, upon realizing my attention was on her, said, "Hope I'm not interrupting...I was just getting cold and thought maybe if I sat by the fire, I'd get warmer."

"You want my seat?" I asked, as I was on the end of the couch, closer to the fire than she was.

"Oh no, that's perfectly all right." She paused and glanced off out the window, where tiny flecks of snow floated silently to the ground. "I'm not bothering you-am I? I can leave if you want me to..."

"No, no, you're fine. I was just thinking...daydreaming, one could say." I smiled, trying to pretend to be an innocent and friendly college kid.

"Thinking, hmm? About anything good?"

I thought about the little girl again, how William's blood had drenched my clothes, and the mental storm nearly paralyzing me after leaving William's teeth in the nearest church. But, I couldn't tell this normal girl such things, lest she run off, screaming and alerting the entire lodge that Josh wasn't really who he said he was. 

"Well," I replied, "not really...just, you know, thinking about everything...nothing too specific."

"Hopefully you're thinking about some warmer weather for us here."

"Warmer? Why? What's wrong with a little bit of snow?"

"You're not from around here-are you?" she chuckled.

"No," I answered suspiciously, reminded of Diane asking me the same thing. "Why do you ask?"

"If you don't mind the snow, then this must be vacation for you...or something like that. There aren't too many natives who revel in all the snow all the time. I mean, we like it, but warmth once in awhile is most welcomed."

"Ah. Well, my school's in Connecticut, so yeah, this would be my vacation. Ever been there?"

  
            "Can't say that I have. Is it nice?"

I shrugged. "I'm not complaining too much. Even if I didn't like it, I guess I couldn't leave, seeing as how I'm on a full ride scholarship…so…"

"So, unless you drop out or fail, you're pretty much stuck," she stated, brushing back a piece of her honey brown hair.

"You got it. And, I don't think my parents would approve of either plan." 

"Make sense, but hey, my name's Rose," the woman said. "What's yours?"

"Joshua…but just call me Josh."

"Josh…" She smiled again, and unfortunately, I had to admit that she had a nice smile, one which vaguely resembled the Blue Lady's. "I can do that."

We continued talking, and I found myself actually enjoying her company. She was energetic and confident, but realistic and intelligent. Even though my words to her were complete lies, two hours together passed easily and comfortably. Through her laugher and her words, Rose reminded me of what Jada could have been if she hadn't been broken at such an early age, although I knew I would never care for this woman as I had cared for Jada. Finally, as the conversation paused and the managers were closing the bar, she asked if I would like to go to her room to continue talking. Surprising myself, I agreed.

I entered her room first and when she came in behind me, I was almost positive I heard her lock the door. Wary, I put my guards up, but decided that this locking might lead to something further between us. I wasn't especially interested in sex, but if it happened, then I'd deal with it at the appropriate time.

She approached me slowly, walking with the grace of a cat and holding her hands outstretched, as if showing me she had nothing to hide. "Now, I don't want to scare you any, but I want to talk to you…on a serious level. No more lies to one another. The truth." Her voice, once higher pitched and melodious, was low and dangerous, and her eyes focused and intense.

"Rose? What's going on here?"

"I'm not Rose, and you're not Josh. You and I both know that. Stop lying." She gauged my reaction as every muscle in my body instinctively tensed. "Sit down, Ben, and let's talk."

Instantly, I launched myself at this imposter, prepared to kill. She ducked as I approached and slid easily underneath me so that we stood in opposite places. "Ben, stop this-" she began, but I flew at her and threw her to the ground. Beneath me, her feet sprang up and kicked me in the stomach forcefully enough to send me toppling to the ground, gasping for air. While I was down, she grabbed me by the wrist and began to drag me to my feet, intent on getting me to willingly listen. However, with my free hand, I whipped around and grabbed her by the throat, shaking her violently. This motion caused her brunette wig to tumble off and reveal a bright head of blue hair.

"The Blue Girl…" I vehemently hissed.

"No…" she gasped. "You don't understand…" 

I ignored her, remembering our past encounters together and forced her down on the bed where I pressed my thumbs harder against her windpipe. "You working for Lydecker?" I snarled though grit teeth. "For Zack?" Frantically, more out of pure frustration than rage, I shook her by the neck. "Who the hell are you working for?! Tell me!" I bellowed.

With this, she brought one of her fists up and punched me directly in the face with more strength than I thought possible, causing an explosion of blood from my nose and a swirl of massive pain. I staggered back as she twisted around and began crawling off the bed. Right then, I toppled onto her, my mouth pressed against her shoulder blade. "I'll kill you right now if you don't tell me who you're working for-" then I stopped, mid-sentence as I noticed something about her. 

In the tumble, her blue hair had fallen away, revealing the back of her neck. And, there, causing me to freeze, was a set of black lines, thick and thin. 

A barcode. 

Blue Girl had a barcode. 

Carefully, terrified and fuming, I read the numbers out loud to myself, "33…270…113…9…798…" There was a long pause before I finally choked out, "Jace?"


	30. Row of Dominos

Neither one of us moved for a long time. My mind was frantically jumping like a bead of oil on a hot pan and it wouldn't have surprised me if it leaped right out of my head. At last, Jace broke the silence by convincing me that all she wanted to do was talk, and I allowed her to sit comfortably on the bed as I stood by the room's window, looking down at the dark world.

"I thought you were in Manticore," I bit under my breath. It was almost an accusation. Almost as if condemning her for entering the outside world and coming to me in such a human form. "You stayed behind after the escape."

"Well," she admitted, "I _was_ in Manticore there for awhile. Then, I went on an underground mission to assassinate an old Manticore doctor, and you'll never believe who I ran into."

"Zack…The son of a bitch pokes his nose everywhere it shouldn't be."

"Actually," Jace mused, crossing her legs under her, Indian style, "I didn't see him until much later. I met Max first."

"_Max_? Our sister Max?" 

"The one and only. Her boyfriend...or merely 'male friend'-whatever their relationship is-was being treated by the targeted doctor for paralysis of the lower extremities. To make a long story short, Max was able to convince me that working for Lydecker wasn't what I wanted to do, especially with a child on the way."

"Max's pregnant?" I remarked, thinking immediately of all the snide comments such an event could bring about. 

"No, Ben. I am."

I turned away from the window to face her. Her answer was one I certainly hadn't expected. The Jace I had known wouldn't have let anyone lay his hand on her shoulder, let alone have sex with her, and even then, she must have known about birth control. "You're pregnant?" I gaped.

"Couple of months, give or take, yes."

"Another X5?"

"No. Lab tech back at Manticore. But," she sighed, "I don't want to talk about that. I came here to talk to you, about...everything...not me."

Uncertainly, I pulled up a chair hiding over in the shadows and sat down across from her, crossing my arms before resting my feet on the bed. The silver-framed glasses had long fallen away during my fight with Jace, and I began to feel ridiculous in such formal clothes. "Let me get one thing straight," I stated rather angrily, pointing a cold finger at her. "You've been disguised as the Blue Girl and been following me ever since Chicago?"

"The 'Blue Girl'?" Jace laughed. "Wherever did you get that name?"

"The hair, for starters."

She grasped a strand of her fluorescent blue hair and examined it. "Yes, I do suppose that would have something to do with the nickname." Then, she let it drop and nestle back among the rest of her hair. "But, Ben, yes, I have been trailing you since Chicago. From Chicago to Michigan, from Michigan to New York, and now from New York to Denver."

"Did Zack tell you to?"

"Sort of."

"'Sort of'?" I echoed, raising my eyebrows. I couldn't believe I was listening to this so freely.

"I was already in Chicago when he had just finished talking to you...this was before you murdered Carlos. Zack was real messed up, real afraid that you were going to get yourself caught by Lydecker and whatever else. I ran into him and he asked me if I would talk to you, hoping that maybe another approach would get you to think otherwise. So, I dyed the hair blue, bought some new clothes to further disguise myself and off I went. I figured I'd follow you-without your knowledge-as long as I could until you either got yourself into trouble or were ready to coherently listen." She smiled wryly, tracing a finger over her lower lip. "And, I'll give you this much: You do rather well for yourself, you really do."

"I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not."

"But, when you reached New York City and that little girl died...God, Ben, I don't know if I've ever seen anyone so messed up-"

"Jace," I quickly snapped, feeling a sudden flurry of both hostility and sadness slice through me, "I don't want to talk about it. Stop. Now."

"Well, I'm sorry if _you_ don't want me to continue. But the fact remains that you need to talk about it. Every time something bad happens to you, you can't push it aside and expect life to continue on in a normal, cyclical, pleasant manner. You did that with Jack's death, you do it every time you murder, and you did it when the little girl died…_especially_ when she died. Just pick yourself up, pretend all those tears you cried aren't real, create some new fabulous façade, and move on without ever looking back."

"Jace..." I warned, involuntarily clenching my hands into fists.

"I'm not afraid of you, Ben, if that's what you want me to be. You want to snap my neck? Rip my teeth out, break my left arm behind my back and display me under the sky for your Lady? Is that what you really want? Kill me and then forget that you ever did?"

I didn't answer her and looked away from her accusing eyes.

"The fact of the matter Ben, is that through your 'sacrifices' or whatever you want to call them, you're not only risking exposure for yourself, but for all of us. Zack's been trying like hell to get you to stop, I know he has. Don't get me wrong, I'm not commending him for that because he certainly hasn't handled it in the best way possible. Frankly, he's been an asshole about it at some points…beating you and all, but you know how he gets when he loses control of an important situation…He just doesn't think clearly. Regardless of all that, you've got to understand what we're getting at. Let's say you happen to kill in a city where one of the others is located. Los Angeles? San Francisco? Portland? Kill there. Lydecker finds you because you leave your barcode on your victims and you can barely function after you kill anymore. Lydecker finds another sibling because they're going to be there, trying to help you and clean up your mess as well. He finds one of us, it won't be long before he finds the rest. We're row of dominos, some of spaced further apart than others, but dominos all the same."

"I'm careful in what I do," I argued.

"Careful?" she arched an eyebrow and puckered her lips in bemusement. "Let's define 'careful', shall we, little brother? Careful is not killing people in such a particular fashion that morticians can identify your murders merely by style. Careful is not openly displaying the bodies with your barcode on the back of their necks. Careful is not fleeing to a church and leaving teeth on Mary's altar, then bursting into a hysteria of sobs, barely able to function. Careful?" She snorted in disgust before growling under her breath, "Like hell."

"Well, what do you want me to do?!" I sputtered, rising to my feet and breaking under her criticism. "Pretend like I don't _care_ about Her?! Like She doesn't _exist_?! Is that what you want?"

"No."

"Jace, look at me! I'm alive-aren't I? I've been through literal hells and back, and I'm still alive…and you want to know why? Because She protects me! She'll _always_ protect me as long as I serve Her faithfully! Do you understand _that_?! Telling me to stop serving Her would be suicide because then the 'nomlies would get me!"

"The _anomalies_?" Jace questioned, cocking her head to the side. "What the hell do the 'nomlies have to do with anything?"

"More than you'd think," I spat and moved over to the window again, placing distance between her and myself. Outside, the sky was perfectly clear, dotted only by microscopic stars and a large full moon hurling its light down upon the freshly fallen snow. 

I gripped the window ledge between my hands and rested my forehead against the window, watching condensation form where my warm flesh touched the cold glass. The room was silent for a long time, and I expected Jace to leave me as everyone else had done. But, she stayed, observing me from her seat, before climbing off the bed and approaching me from behind.

"Ben." Her voice was low, but gentle. The condescending tone of before had disappeared and she was once again my concerned big sister. In spite of this, I did not turn to fully face her and instead let my eyes flicker over to where she stood before returning my gaze to the world outside. 

"Ben," she repeated. "I know you think you're doing something good here. I understand that…I haven't been out of Manticore that long, but I remember that I thought I was doing something good there, when I really wasn't." She sighed heavily and rested her hand carefully, as if touching a hot iron, on my shoulder. "It's just that none of us want you to see you get hurt. Zack, me, any of the others…we're worried about you. You're putting yourself in danger, and sooner or later, we're afraid it's going to catch up with you. We've all been where you have, and we understand how hard it can be out here, but don't you think if your Lady was really as compassionate as you believe Her to be, She wouldn't have you kill?"

At last, I faced her. "Look, Jace, you just…you can't…you _don't_ understand."

"Then help me to."

"No."

A flicker of something passed by her face. Anger? Confusion? I wasn't sure and she hid her emotions so well that it was difficult to determine. Nevertheless, she grabbed me by the hand and pulled me over to the foot of the bed, where we sat, side by side; I was too drained of emotions and energy to fight her this time. "I think you go to this Lady, searching for love…something all of us wants. Tinga has it with her husband. Max has it with her boyfriend. Zane has found unconditional love from his dog. I thought I had it with the lab tech…It's something every single one of us searches for day after day. But, this Lady, Ben? She doesn't love you. You found love. You found love in New York with the Asian woman and her family. _They _loved you, Ben. They knew who you were without having you throw some false persona in their face, and they still loved you. And, I don't know if you'll ever admit it, but you loved them as well. If I were you, I would go back to New York. Find her and build something. You've been searching so long for love and you found it, you really did."

I didn't reply, and she touched the side of my face. "I want you to think about everything I've said. Spend one night with me instead of running off into the darkness. Will you do that for me?"

"All right," I answered after a pause, bowing my head. 

"Thanks," she replied and soon, Jace was curled up on top of the bed covers with a pillow underneath her head. Although she appeared to be lightly dozing, I knew that she was more awake than anyone would ever believe. After sitting on the bed for awhile, I eventually crawled over to her and lay down beside her. "Jace?" I whispered.  
            Her large eyes slowly opened, finding me quickly despite the thick darkness. "Hmm?"

"Do you have a name picked out for your baby yet?"

"Sort of…I was thinking of 'Max', because she helped me get my head on straight."

"Oh."

She must have heard my disappointment because she asked, "Why? You had an idea?"

"Yeah..."

"And?"

"I was thinking of what you were saying earlier and I…could you consider this for me?"

"Sure," she answered.

"If it's a girl, would you…" I paused, fighting back the tears blurring my vision. I wasn't comfortable saying such things to Jace, but I felt, for the sake of a child, I should ask this favor. "If it's a girl, could you name it 'Lia'?"

She said nothing, but smiled sadly, seeing what pain it was causing me even to mention Lia's name. Jace wrapped her arms around me, hugged me tightly and kissed the top of my head. "I'll think about it, Ben," she whispered softly.


	31. Amen

The next morning, Jace was already awake by the time my eyelids barely started to flutter open. She was seated on the window ledge, looking out at the morning horizon, reveling in the beauty the mountains could bring to such a desolate landscape. Her blue hair, I noticed, was developing streaks of black, where her natural color was starting to grow back, and her face was already softening under the gentle caress of motherhood. Briefly, I wondered how she would ever tell her child all that it needed to know. An innocent child should not be subjected to such horrors, but could not be denied the truth. 

Stretching, I swung my legs out of the bed and rubbed my eyes, knowing that I need not be on full alert with Jace only a couple feet away. Even after all my moving around, it wasn't until I had walked over to the door that Jace looked away from the window to me. 

"I'm leaving now," I stated bluntly.

"And where, exactly, Ben, do you plan on going?"

"I don't know. I'll figure it out as I go along. I always have. I have the cash to go anywhere."

She murmured unintelligently, showing neither approval nor disapproval in my plan.

"Do you know where Zack is?" I questioned, scratching lightly at the tip of my nose, which he had injured on more than one occasion.

"No…I haven't heard from him in awhile, which would lead me to believe that he's in hiding in Canada, but I really don't know."

"Oh. Well, I'm just trying to avoid running into him. We didn't part on the best of terms, and I don't want a lecture about how poorly I'm misbehaving or for him to merely beat my face into the ground because he's having a bad day."

"No," she agreed.

Neither of us said anything. I didn't want to leave her so soon, but I felt as though I were suffocating in such an environment because she knew and understood so much about my life that I labored to keep extremely secret. 

"Ben," she said, "you can stay with me, if you want. I wouldn't mind. You'd actually be somebody to talk to besides myself."

"No." I shook my head fervently. "I can't. I have to keep on moving."

"I understand." Smoothly, she climbed off the windowsill and walked over to me. "Take care of yourself-okay?" 

"I'll try."

She smiled and gave me a hug. The gesture, coming from a hardened Manticore assassin, surprised me, yet I didn't shy away from it as I might have done only months ago. "Remember what I said, and be careful."

I nodded mutely.

"If I do see Zack, anything you want me to tell him?"

"Make up something."

She laughed softly. "All right."

I moved closer to the exit, ready to leave her and all her warnings. Just as I opened the door, I turned back to where she stood. "Where did you say Max was at?"

"She's in Seattle…Why? Planning to go there?"

"Maybe."

"Well, you'll recognize her right off," Jace remarked. "Dark curly hair, brown doe eyes, slightly tan skin…sort of a gypsy look. But, she's changed a lot from the girl in Manticore, she really has, so don't hold any of the past against her."

"Max. Seattle. Okay. Got it." I paused again, before saying, "Thanks Jace, for just…you know."

Smiling faintly, she nodded, understanding my inability to express appreciation. "Go on, Ben," she told me and with that, I was finally gone.

I stole a car in the ski lodge's parking lot and merged onto the nearest northbound highway. Although I wasn't sure why I was going to Seattle to see a sister I had despised for so long, I supposed it was more or less curiosity. Jace had said Max was different, so maybe I would actually tolerate her now that we were both grown. Besides, even without Max, it was possible that in Seattle, I would find something I hadn't ever experienced before.

The road in front of me was endless, and as the sun set, the black pavement began to glow like hot lava. It was a straight road with both a direct beginning and direct end. There were signs posted on the edge of the even road, rusty and faded, but signs nonetheless, telling a person where to go to achieve the destination desired. I could have stayed on that road, driving straight up to Washington, but I didn't.

Miles from Denver and eons from Seattle, I pulled off at an exit and found myself amongst twisting gravel back roads. The signs were few and those that did appear were covered in teenage graffiti. Yet, I felt more comfortable on those roads than I had on the main highway. It was the way I had lived my life, after all, by turning away from the safe and direct main course, which provided more safety and direction than another route; on the dissimilar roads, I was in complete control. 

I could choose life. I could choose death.

It was the way I always had been and would continue to be.

Zack, Jace, and the other siblings whom I had not seen in nearly a decade could hand me all the maps they wanted. They could give me the car to ride the straight road. They could even kidnap me and personally drive me on the direct route. No matter how hard they pushed and pleaded for me to cease my differential routes, though, I would not.

They hadn't seen all that I had. They hadn't loved so deeply and lost so much. They hadn't felt the 'nomlies' hot breath on the backs of their necks. And, the only reason I made it through all of my struggles was because She was with me. 

I couldn't stop. No matter how dangerous it was, I would never stop serving Her or driving on the dangerous back roads. She was the angel who had protected me since Manticore and would continue to do so as long as my servitude continued.

As the sun set, it created shadows and glimmers of false images in the trees. Although I knew what I was seeing were just mirages, I couldn't help but relish in seeing my Lady warmly smiling down at me through the lush green trees. 

I smiled back at Her, and the sunlight danced over my face like water droplets, a lush caress across my bruised mortal skin. Slowly, as the road continued, the forest began to engulf the car under its loving embrace of fleshy leaves and glistening grass, and the light at the end of the forest began to grow ever more vibrantly before me. 

It was the light for my deceased siblings. 

It was the light for me. 

And I whispered, "Amen."


	32. Epilogue

_Epilogue_

            Max is with me in this dank Seattle forest where she smashed my bones into a multitude of bloody pieces beneath the flesh. I am lying in her arms, and my agonized body is sprawled over her bent knees, while one of her hands clasps the back of my neck and the other rests across my body. The pain, a diabolical fiend within me, unfurls inside of my leg and slithers its tendrils up through my body, wanting to paralyze my being. To resist it and block such a force from my mind is easy enough. To rise valiantly to my feet and flee into the lush grove of trees surrounding us, however, is impossible.

            My flight has ended.

            In the dark recesses of my mind, the thunder begins to roll in a great multitude of reverberations, sounding like a hungry demon's stomach anxious for its next meal. I thought I had witnessed the worst of such a beast before, but I know now that any of my past beliefs are gone, obliterated like my defenses. Even though I hate the idea of Max seeing me cry, tears, hot and acid, spring to my eyes and I cannot stop them from appearing around my quivering blue irises.  The storm of death is approaching once again, but with an intensity unlike anything I have ever known, for this time, it comes for me. 

Part of me leaves my green grave and enters into a separate world where those I have known so intimately in my months of freedom wait for me. Dead or alive when I last saw them, they exist in the form I knew them best, and whether they are true ghosts or merely hallucinations of a dying man, I do not know.

Jace sits with her legs crossed underneath, and her blue hair, streaked black, tumbles down around her face. She tried to warn me, tried to make me see that my destruction was closer than I thought, and to ultimately give me a chance at a better life. It was she, who had to disguise herself, just so I would listen to the words of my death, even if it meant driving me to the point of insanity. I ignored her precious words, believing she knew nothing of what she spoke and continued on my fatal road. 

Zack's here too, in all of his black leather glory, and for the first time, his eyes are downcast and mouth tight against his wrinkled skin. He is mourning and naturally will not admit such an emotion. Yet, for a second, he looks up and meets my eyes. Grieving for me and berating himself, his eyes are coated over with glassy tears, and in them, I see my reflection, and I know at last what I monster I have become. 

Carlos sneers wickedly, whispering his curses to the devil that spin and echo around me, which make my head swirl in confusion. We were more alike than I thought, as both of us believed our superiority made us indestructible in the realm of inferior humans. At our strongest moment, though, destruction came. No longer am I the murdering spider; I have become the insect forced to suffer under another's judgment.

Kyle passes by me, studying me, as was his job in Manticore all those years ago. Even if his conscious mind did not recognize me on the bus, deep down, beneath the layers of gray matter, he knew I wasn't the mere football jock I claimed to be. Jack, his simple son, floats slowly in the background, so I can only see his gray figure in the distance. He was to be the death to avenge my brother's and the blood to cease my rampage for proper revenge. 

Jada cradles Taji in her arms, whispering sweet words to him as tears fall down her hollow cheeks. These tears splatter onto Taji's dirty skin and leave their trails on the curve of his bones. The only woman I ever loved for more than blood or sex, for she gave me neither, I will forever regret leaving her that night her daughter died. My subconscious struggles to reach out to her for one last caress and one last kiss that could save me from the suffering of death. She refuses to acknowledge me and, with the back of her hand, she wipes her tears away and denies her ever-augmenting pain.

George, perfectly whole and completely devilish, aims his gun at me, pulling the trigger, but failing to execute his deadly plan. My love for Jada fades away to hatred for such a bastard of a man, and it was he who made me realize that my childhood was fairly decent compared to the punishment he bestowed upon his own children. Unfortunately, there are a thousand more like him and a thousand more children who will suffer until death mercifully ends their pain. A compassionate part of me wishes to save them all.

William stands casually in the corner, swirling his precious vodka in its little crystal cups. He looks up from his drink for a moment, meeting my eyes as they float inside my skull. Tipping his head to me in a gentleman's fashion, he smiles wryly before turning away to drown himself in potent alcohol and to block out the memories of his mother he loved so much.

Diane sits on the floor, with her beautiful white dress flooded around her in a shimmering puddle of pearls and lace. She moans softly, but her body is too weak to produce tears for herself. All she ever wanted in life was to be loved, and her greatest desire caused her greatest pain.

Suddenly, breaking through these sorrowful images is Lia, my love, and the only one who truly could have saved me from the storm. Twirling under a beacon of radiant light, while the people around her are clad in shadows, she runs to me through puddles of crystal water. The water shimmers with a rainbow's glorious colors and her sun nearly blinds me with all the love she powers it with. She holds her arms out to me, and at last, I can hear her as she cries my name in a flurry of giggles, pleading for me to come and dance. My heart nearly bursts upon seeing her again, and I try to call out to her but the pain steals my voice away before it reaches my lips.

            Slowly, my subconscious joins my being in the entirety, and I see Max above me who is shaking her head, refusing to grant my one last request. The one last request that will change me forever: I am pleading with her to kill me. The storm is thunderous in my brain and it takes all my concentration to listen to her instead of grabbing my head in insanity. She believes I do not want to return to Manticore and suffer with the monsters in the basement. 

What I do not tell her is that I am not afraid of the simple anomalies who gather in the cages of Manticore. The ones who reached for me in the hallway as a child, knowing that I would return to them one way or another. 

I am afraid of myself because _I_ am the monster in the basement. I want her to destroy me before I destroy myself. Before the storm reaches me and swallows me whole. 

As I have all along, the only creature that could ever bring destruction to me was myself. No matter the human dangers I took, I was unstoppable. Only when my own weakness erupted, did my mortality triumph over immortality. 

            Then, I see the acceptance in Max's face. Her body tenses, followed by a period of brief relaxation. "Tell me about the Good Place," she says, her voice strangely hollow and yet beautiful. 

            I struggle to smile, but the pain has reached my face, and my lips twist and turn unnaturally. So many times have I spat in death's face, and, now, standing at its gates, I am terrified beyond comprehension. "Where no one ever gets punished?" I question, even though I know the lines by heart. The Good Place is my world where the storm cannot reach me. Will I reach the Good Place now before the storm catches up with me? The wind racks my beaten body and the rain gushes down in torrents as the thunder rises in volume, building in a crescendo of death.

            "And no one gets yelled at," she continues. Her eyes glisten with tears, and I wish I could kiss her right then and tell her that my blood will not be on her hands, for she is doing the right thing for both of us.

            "And nobody disappears…" The roar of the thunder and rain is deafening, and the wind shreds my muscles open within me. "And in the morning," I begin, staring into space where the Blue Lady and her angels smile at me through heavenly rays of sunshine, and the anomalies grin on the sidelines with saliva dribbling from their fangs, prepared to feast on my flesh until the end of the world. Violently trembling as the storm surrounds me, prepared to reach its climactic end, I continue, "...You can stay in bed as long as you-"

            Then there was a crack like lightning.


End file.
